Peeping Probing offers the rare opportunity to view Edo erotic prints called
Shunga. These works are rarely available to the American public and it is
defiantly worth seeing them before they disappear in to private collections
again.
The Shunga them selves are fantastic, although not each one is up to the
standards of quality of high art wood block prints, there frankness and
humor makes them very endearing.
It is easy to see how contemporary hentai grew quite organically out of
these prints, there is a Shunga of a woman having sex with a demon (think
overfiend), another of a giant squid performing cunnilingus on a woman while
fondling her breasts with his tentacles (La Blue Girl) and even one that
features the cross-section cutaway in which you can view the penis while it
is inside the vagina (ever popular in doujin today).
Unfortunately it is impossible to discuss the show with out mentioning
Curator Elizabeth Semmelhack. She seems to be intent on placing her self
between the viewer and the work in the most invasive and awkward way
possible.
The gallery is painted black with very low light, a false wall is set about
six inches in front of the original wall. In the false wall windows have bee
cut, through which the work is viewed. The problem is that many of the
windows are cut at awkward heights visible neither from a standing nor
kneeling position. Imagine me hunched over trying to stare through a 4in by
6in window while constantly being jostled by strangers in a dark room.
The ill-chosen arrangement of the work in now way diminishes the grace and
intrigue of these numerous well-preserved prints.
Article by Anna Fischer
