In 2014, Young At Art, a Broward taxpayer supported children’s museum in Davie, hosted the “Naughty By Nature” peep show in Fort Lauderdale. The exhibit was part of Young At Art’s “Bedlam Lorenz Assembly,” which sought to expose Broward’s children to contemporary art. The “Naughty By Nature” exhibit was held at the 1310 Gallery in Fort Lauderdale. It featured naked men and women, a dog licking a TV screen while an x-rated movie played in the background, a “precum/postcum” elevator light show, something called “Enter The Honey Hole” and “Vagina Flowers.”
Zack Shrago Spechler, son of Young At Art executive director Mindy Shrago, described the show as an exploration of sexuality. “The idea that really intrigued me is how we can be so obsessed with our bodies, and the sexuality of others, but we can be in a room full of body parts and not even recognize them,” Spechler said. “So you can stand in this exhibit and see various body parts, but they are abstract. You’re like, ‘Wait, is that a leg?'” According to SouthFlorida.com, Zack Shrago Spechler “operates the art collective Bedlam Lorenz Assembly at the Young at Art Museum.”
Earlier this year, Zack Shrago Spechler was the main focus of a consultant’s review of Young At Art. According to the Sun-Sentinel, consultant Louise Stevens of ArtsMarket, “[F]indings were that Shrago’s 32-year-old son, Zach Spechler, is being paid by the museum to act as a curator, unbeknownst to county officials, who said it might violate the terms of their agreement. Last year, for example, he was paid $17,636. A group he formed solicits artists and decides what art gets displayed in the museum, Stevens said.”
(Last November, REDBROWARD revealed Stevens had been threatened during the Young At Art review process.)
Did Broward taxpayers pay for this “Naughty By Nature” peep show? Should a taxpayer-funded children’s museum expose kids to risque art exhibits? At sign at the exhibit said, [T]he sexual and grotesque reveal themselves in sculptural and installation-based works with a distorted focus on flesh, tissue, organs and everything in between.” Should children see “grotesque” art with a “distorted focus on flesh?
In a video tour of the exhibit on YouTube, children are dragged into the “precum/postcum” elevator which took guests to the “peep show.”
The “peep show” was described as an exploration of “[T]he human body in a direct, full frontal affront, phasing macroscopic representations of the figure into the exhibition’s intimate abstractions.” For us regular non-artistic types, this means topless women pleasuring themselves on video screens.”
Last week, REDBROWARD exposed Mindy Shrago’s attendance at a strange political puppet theater featuring topless women and Donald Trump pinatas. No wonder Shrago was all smiles, she’s apparently used to such oddball shows.
Now, as Shrago and YAA Chairman David Di Pietro seek a new deal with Broward County, our leaders should forget the consultants and the audit games. They should demand a full accounting of Young At Art’s finances to make sure taxpayer money is not funding someone’s political rallies or nude peep shows.
I just saw this video and at the end I saw something that was very disturbing. My company name as a sponsor. I don’t know where that came from as I have not been involved with YAA for something. In fact I resigned as a board member last summer. Please confirm that the credit’s where taken from something that I may have sponsored in the past and not this exhibit.
In no way would my company nor myself ever condone this type of art exhibit in a kids museum.
Tim Bascombe
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Tim, we added nothing to video. We cut it for length, but that credit card was added by the YAA BLA team. It appears the “Naughty By Nature” exhibit was part of the 2014 Art Fallout event. This video is from the 2014 event.
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