What are we to make of the explicit imagery in the print Seaside Bathing?

Meiji Modern is full of intriguing and surprising works. Seaside Bathing, attributed to Terasaki Kogyo, might be especially intriguing, or even shocking, to some viewers, with its explicit and humorous depiction of sexual activity. How are we meant to view this image? What should we do with the feelings it might conjure up in us as we look at it, including the discomfort it might make some of us feel? How should we think about or encounter an erotic work of art in the context of a museum?

Join scholars Hilary Strang and Carl Fuldner for an in-gallery discussion around intimacy, desire, and humor, as well as the historical context of the work and the question of its display. The evening will finish with an art making exercise.

FREE. Suggested for mature audiences only. Advanced registration requested, as space is limited.  

About the presenters

• Hilary Strang is Director of the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities; Associate Senior Instructional Professor, Humanities; and Affiliate Faculty, Department of English and Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at the University of Chicago
• Carl Fuldner is Assistant Instructional Professor, Master of Arts Program in the Humanities and Art History at the University of Chicago

Image: Attributed to Terasaki Kōgyō, Seaside Bathing from the Pledge of Izumo (detail), ca. 1900, Lithograph. Collection of David Libertson. Photograph by Richard P. Goodbody.