Sex. Payback. Success.

Tracey Emin's video Why I Never Became a Dancer packs in all those elements and more, a disarming work that begins with shocking revelations of how the British artist used sex as a distraction when she was 13 and 14 and living in the seaside resort town of Margate.

``It was something you could do, and it was for free,'' Emin says in the video, adding in an elegiac voice that her partners were ``19, 20, 25, 26.''

This seminal work by someone whose art is inseparable from her controversial life is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami through Nov. 8 in Pivot Points, Part 3.

NEW WORKS

The exhibition of more than 50 works highlights MOCA's new acquisitions, displaying them next to earlier-acquired works as if in conversation.

MOCA has been developing its collection of (so far) approximately 600 pivotal works by international artists since 1995. The approach concentrates on works connected by concepts and methodology rather than chronology, style or medium. The works have been acquired through gifts and with proceeds from annual fundraisers.

The Pivot Points series -- this is its third installation -- marks important moments in the development of artists' careers as well as turning points in the history of contemporary art. Three Miamians -- Karen Rifas, Adler Guerrier and COOPER -- are represented.

``It's not a show of just new acquisitions but about how the new works we have acquired relate to other works already in the collection,'' says Bonnie Clearwater, MOCA executive director and chief curator. ``There are ideas and practices that circulate from generation to generation, from country to country. What we try to do as curators is make sense of our time through the objects we are assembling.''

MOCA was the first museum in the United States to purchase Emin's work, Clearwater says. The video, which ends the Pivots show and was purchased in 1998, is an ode of sorts to the success Emin would achieve -- and an I'll-show-them-moment to the men who had sex with her, then heckled her offstage during a dance contest.

Why I Never Became a Dancer is exhibited next to a 2007 acquisition -- a sculpture and video by COOPER titled Return of the Pilgrim in which the Miami-born artist who now lives in New Mexico explores the relationship between ``natives'' and ``strangers.''

COOPER dons the sculpture as costume -- two stacked Mayflower shipping boxes with a black toy gun sticking out of one side and plastic yellow boots. He then roams a desolate industrial area and videotapes his interactions with a pack of ``native'' stray dogs. He befriends the dogs, feeding them biscuits from an opening in the crotch area of his costume.

``The work was done at the beginning [of Wynwood's emergence as an arts district], when Locust opened,'' says Clearwater, who curated the exhibition.

Clearwater likes the way the piece also refers to another recent acquisition, Rita Ackermann's surreal Firecrotch.

The Hungarian artist also investigates primitivist topics and uses nontraditional materials such as cardboard. A cat-like face is inspired by the drawings of Ackermann's daughter, but the mixed-media work takes on more-ominous tones as elements such as an androgynous torso with a gun are stacked totem-pole style.

``The metamorphosis of animal to human, using expressionism, creating something emotional and tactile, creates a dynamic [in the collection] we didn't have until we added the Rita Ackermann,'' Clearwater says.

FEMALE ARTISTS

Perhaps unintentionally, this Part 3 rings with the distinctly powerful voices of some of the world's best-known contemporary female artists -- none more powerful than that of Magdalena Abakanowicz.

Abakanowicz's Head, the first burlap sculpture by the Polish artist now known for her headless torsos, commands the MOCA gallery. Abakanowicz's explorations of the human form are believed to have been influenced by her work as a nurse in a temporary hospital, tending to the wounded during the air raids of World War II.

The other Miami artists also represent interesting additions to the collection.

In the photographic triptych Untitled (Airport), Haiti-born Guerrier documents a moment of dislocation and disorientation in the waiting area of Miami International Airport.

Rifas' installation Inside Out -- yellow and black cords stretched from ceiling to floor to produce a physical cross hatching that creates illusions of space and volume -- takes up a corner of the gallery.

The work represents a significant departure for the Chicago-born Miami artist known for sculptures and installations made from domestic found objects.

``I heard a lot of people say they were so surprised [by it] and are now thinking about her anew,'' Clearwater says. ``It's a pivotal moment for her in her development.''

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