In recent days, at a meeting of colleagues in Kyoto, among some other project future , surrounded by beer, sake and eel, it emerged that the large-scale exhibition of shunga is preparing British Museum in 2013, for whose realization are organizing various activities and workshops (as I mentioned in last post ) 1 , and that that meeting was part to some extent.
This exhibition will be the largest example of shunga so far has been done internationally, returning to Europe to be the preferred forum for the organization of such events. Trying to remember a little from exposure cure Marco Fagioli in 1989 for the Musée d'ILX-elles, Brussels, the most recent samples that have been dedicated in whole or part to be Japanese erotic prints: Kielletyt kuvat - vanhaa eroottista taidetta japanica "(Museum of the City of Helsinki, 2003)," Lentelust. Erotische Fantasia in Edo Japan "(Kunsthal, Rotterdam, 2005)," The Bibliothèque L'Enfer. Eros au secret "(Bibliotheque Nationale de France, 2008)," The Art of Love : Ofer Shagan's Shunga Collection (Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art, Haifa, 2009), " Shunga. Arte nel Giappone ed eros Edo period (Palazzo Reale, Milan, 2009), and " Imatges secrets. Picasso i l' Japanese erotic prints (Picasso Museum, Barcelona, \u200b\u200b2010).
Puritan's reluctance to make such exhibitions in the United States. Not only has not presented any, but also the few academic North American products have been launched to study shunga occasionally, either working in institutions in that country. For the Latin American case, in my opinion, stronger than the prudish itch believe that the strongest reasons to not have thought of such an exhibition would be the widespread ignorance that exists in these parts, the almost complete absence of specialists the issue, juggling the search for resources and do not forget, the "interest" in other exhibits more "bombastic."
However, returning to the theme of the last meeting in Kyoto, even though these pieces were part of urban popular culture of XVII, XVIII and XIX of Japan, and fortunately we know today that some large private and public collections, has never made a display of shunga there. The only attempt content was a small sample "semi-private partnership" that was mounted last year at the Art Research Center of Ritsumeikan University (Kyoto), to accompany the first activity of this series of workshops that will precede the British display. Of course, this was only the knowledge of those attending the event and was never announced publicly.
The reasons behind no explicit ban for shunga exhibitions in Japan lies in the ways that even today, the legal apparatus considers these parts, considered ambiguous and often absurd that depart from the way they were classified as "obscene "from the import process (from above) of many of the Western modernizing discourse in the second half of the nineteenth century, including Victorian puritanism.
Despite attempts by certain groups of editors, artists and, above all, academics to change this situation, despite the impact of the past 5 years they have had on public opinion from adoption of strategies shunga conversion into "art" (very questionable strategy by the way, and are abundant enough in my new book which is already published FNES this year), it seems not very promising future of public display of shunga in Japan.
Finally, perhaps what struck me most of the hearing with which I began the post, is that some Japanese colleagues gathered there (who are some of the few shunga researchers worldwide, I would be sufficient the fingers of my hands to tell), are anticipating the success of insurance will display at the British so (and with the help of the media) try to force the production of a public display of shunga Japanese and many Japanese collections in Japan.
NOTES 1. On account of the eruption of the volcano in Iceland, this workshop will be postponed for 12 to 13 September this year.
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