2013 iDocQ 20x20 presentation

1. Louise Boyd,
HATII &History of Art
l.boyd.3@research.gla.ac.uk
space
Art, Sex, and Institutions: Defining, Collecting, and
Displaying Shunga in the UK and Japan

2. Shunga: sexually explicit art of Edo Japan (1615-1868)
Examples of a shunga painting,
woodblock print and illustrated
book by Utamaro

3. Common subjects in Edo art
Landscape by Hokusai
Actor print by Kuniyoshi Beautiful women by
Utamaro
Shunga by Harunobu

4. Shunga: omitted, hidden & censored

5. Bilingual Utamaro exhibition catalogues
With shunga Without shunga

6. Shunga scholarship
Previous focus
• Interpretation
• Translation
• Contextualisation
My focus
• Definitions
• Collection history
• Exhibitions
• Reception

7. Interdisciplinary research
History
of art
Qualitative
research
Psychoanalysis
Interviews
Museum
studiesFeminism
History of
Collecting
Case
study
Questionnaires
My
PhD
Information
management
Philosophical
and
methodological
theories
Phenomenology
Hermeneutics

8. What is shunga?
春画
shunga (literally ‘spring art’)
• shunga ≠ erotic art
• shunga ≠ pornographic art
• shunga = sex art?

9. Art? Definitions
Obscene?Pornography?
Erotic?

10. Do definitions matter?

11. Other factors

12. Japan Foundation Japanese-Language
Institute, Kansai
Program for Specialists in Cultural and Academic Fields

13. Research in Japan
Tokyo National Museum Hokusai exhibition

14. Is nudity erotic?
Examples of Western nude Rare example of Japanese nude

15. The International Research Center for
Japanese Studies’ database
• 367 titles
• 101 artists
•High resolution photographs
•Each book can be fully read

16. Case study

17. Previous exhibitions of shunga

18. Reviewing and analysing literature

19. Survey to locate shunga in the UK

20. Thanks for listening