The opening of Japan’s first major public exhibition of shunga erotic prints is quite a landmark event. We finally got to go recently.
We went on a Saturday and the line to get in stretched out of the venue. They were there in their hordes: men, women, couples, foreign tourists (European, American and Asian).
Lining up, some were excited, some seemed curious — while others appeared intellectual and austere. Inside, however, everything changed. All the faces displayed the same awe and amazement; couples exchanged looks and words (“Wow, so big”). Couples gripped each other just that little bit tighter.
There were plenty of older people and young women (apparently among the most common demographic of visitor — though we thought a lot of the women seemed like fujoshi and the kind who might also be into boys’ love). We saw at least one older woman with binoculars so she didn’t miss a detail.
The exhibition is spread out over three floors. The exhibits themselves are all on the small side, placed behind glass cases, so the event does not feel so big.
What is “big” are the multitudes of penises on display, gloriously pronounced and grotesque members with no pixellation in sight!
The curators have blown up larger reproductions and hung these on the walls, though amusingly they have only blown up the faces and other “modest” elements. However, this actually makes it more sensual and erotic — we want to see what is making the faces kiss each other so intensely.
The organizers were turned down by 20 venues and settled for the austere Eisei Museum near Meijiro. It’s an old house, with many of its pre-war fittings intact. This adds to the sense of history — and also makes the whole thing kinkier, since what you are viewing is very much not “respectable”. The Eisei Museum is not a very well-known museum in Tokyo and usually hosts rather unexciting events, such as an exhibition of Noh theater masks. They have the last laugh on the other venues who turned the event down, however, since they must be raking it in, given the crowds and the not-so-cheap ¥1,500 admission price.
First seen overseas, the exhibition brings together a host of prints from multiple private collections. There are hand-drawn scrolls and drawings, as well as books of prints. The genre of shunga can be traced back to the Heian Period — after all, The Tale of Genji is a pretty erotic read — and there is all manner of sexual contortion, position, and taste depicted.
There’s boy-on-boy (nanshoku), man-on-beast (bestiality — with fish and fox/kitsune), and girl-on-girl. Also look out for shibari rope bondage in a least one print and a reproduction of Hokusai’s The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife (there are others from the same series, including a lesbian scene).
One of our favs was the old man jerking man while behind a screen two women went at it with a double-ended dildo.
The most impressive are probably the books of color prints and the beautiful exhibits in the final room.
However, the exhibition is a victim of its own success. Because it is so popular, the rooms are too crowded to view the prints at comfort. We would have liked to have spent another 30 minutes or so there but the crush was too much.
Another curious thing is how it feels unnatural to see so many erotic prints together like this. It’s like staring at Gravure idols or AV non-stop for too long — it ultimately gets boring or same-y.
It is here exhibited as “art” but essentially it was the porn of its day, enjoyed in small doses whenever you felt the urge. Newspapers and magazines are still not allowed to print shunga, but if this is art — then so is AV. Perhaps we are making small steps in the right direction at last.
The Shunga Exhibition runs until December 23rd.
