From March 13th, CHANEL NEXUS HALL in Ginza, Tokyo will be hosting the exhibition "Pierre Sernet & SHUNGA," showcasing the photographs of Pierre Sernet and shunga, which has been gaining increasing attention in recent years.

Kitagawa Utamaro, "Utamakura," 1788 (Tenmei 8)
Collection of Urakami Mitsuru

French-born Pierre Sernet is a performance artist and photographer. After studying art at Les Ateliers du Carrousel in the Louvre in Paris and working in photography in his early twenties, he moved to the United States and pursued a successful career in business. Among his many accomplishments is the founding of artnet.com, the world's largest fine art database. He has now returned to the art world, holding performances and solo exhibitions in galleries and museums across the United States and around the world. Through his work, he explores the similarities that exist among people around the world. The current exhibition, "Synonyms," features a series of nude individuals and couples from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. These abstract forms, rendered in monochrome silhouettes, leave it up to the viewer to interpret them. Each work is titled after the subject's name, allowing us to infer their gender, nationality, and cultural background. Cernay says, "While each of us is unique and different from others, we also share universal commonalities. This is why we should be more accepting of different cultures, lifestyles, and diverse people."

Kaitlin & John, 2016 © SP2X
Pierre Sernet


Across the centuries, we encounter Sernet's photographs through exquisite shunga prints from the Urakami Mitsuru Collection of Urakami Sokyudo, a Tokyo-based shop specializing in antique Oriental ceramics in Nihonbashi. Urakami Mitsuru, president of Urakami Sokyudo, has been collecting approximately 1,500 volumes of Hokusai Manga over the course of 45 years, since his student days. The collection is known as the world's largest in both quality and quantity. Suzuki Harunobu, "Shamisen on the Veranda" (detail), c. 1769-1770 (Meiwa 6-7) Collection of Urakami Mitsuru The exhibition will feature works by Suzuki Harunobu, Torii Kiyonaga, Kitagawa Utamaro, Katsushika Hokusai, and others. Shunga, or erotic prints, humorously depicting human sexuality, also known as "laughing pictures," became popular as a genre of ukiyo-e during the Edo period and encouraged a variety of artistic experimentation. Its bold compositions and colors are said to have had a major influence on Impressionist painters and Pablo Picasso. In recent years, his work has attracted worldwide attention, with the British Museum holding the exhibition "Shunga: sex and pleasure in Japanese art" in 2013 and the Eisei Bunko exhibition "Shunga" in 2015.


Through Cernay's photographs and shunga, why not enjoy the unique contrast that transcends countries and eras, between France and Japan, and between modern times and the Edo period?