Concrete Playground

Ukiyo — most often translated as ‘the floating world’ — refers to hedonistic Edo Japan, in particular the ‘pleasure quarters’ of Yoshiwara where brothels, chashitsu tea houses, sumo wrestling rings, geisha houses and kabuki theatres were frequented by the growing middle classes.

Kitagawa Utamaro was a master ukiyo-e (woodblock prints, literally ‘pictures of the floating world’) artist in the second half of the eighteenth century, best known for his bijinga (‘images of beautiful women’). Under his prolific chisel, fashionable Edo women were depicted as sensual, self-restrained and pensive, usually in private interior settings. At the AGNSW until May, 80 original Utamaro prints are on show, including some gorgeous bijinga, as well as a selection of his animal and insect studies and a clandestine cabinet of explicit erotica prints.

Coinciding with the exhibition is a symposium on Edo Japan, a lecture series, traditional printmaking demonstrations and a free ‘floating world’ film program. Get floaty.

Image: Utamaro and his five women (dir: Kenji Mizoguchi 1946), screening at the AGNSW March 31 and April 4. Courtesy Shochiku and Janus Films.