Aloha, and welcome to Modern Love: 20th-Century Japanese Erotic Art. I’m Stephan Jost, Director of the Honolulu Museum of Art.

Modern Love is the conclusion to a three-year exhibition series about the ways in which Japanese art reflects the country’s sexual culture. In 2012, the exhibition Arts of the Bedchamber: Japanese Shunga focused on the origins of Japanese erotic art in the 17th and 18th century. Further developments in this genre were discussed in last year’s exhibition, Tongue in Cheek: Erotic Art in 19th-Century Japan. This final exhibition considers how the topics of gender, sexual orientation, unconventional erotic practices, and the sex industry pervade modern Japanese art in a variety of media: woodblock printmaking, photography, painting, sculpture, and graphic novels known as manga.

Please be aware that this exhibition is not intended for viewers below the age of 18, nor is it intended for those viewers who are offended by frank discussions and graphic depictions of sexuality.

Modern Love: 20th-Century Japanese Erotic Art was curated by Shawn Eichman and Stephen Salel, curators on staff here at the Honolulu Museum of Art.