Éros au musée
Acquérir, montrer et voir les œuvres érotiques
Published on Thursday, October 23, 2025
Abstract
Le musée n’est pas seulement un lieu d’exposition : il est aussi un espace où se négocient sans cesse la visibilité et la valeur des œuvres. En suivant la thèse formulée par Walter M. Kendrick – selon laquelle l’isolement d’images jugées inmontrables a contribué, paradoxalement, à constituer la catégorie autonome de la pornographie –, ce colloque propose d’explorer le rôle du musée dans la construction et la reconfiguration des regards genrés portés sur les objets liés à la sexualité et/ou au désir (érotiques et pornographiques).
Announcement
Argument
The museum is not merely a site of display ; it is also a space in which the visibility and the value of works of art are constantly renegotiated. Following Walter M. Kendrick’s thesis – that images set aside because they were deemed unshowable paradoxically helped constitute pornography as an autonomous category – this conference seeks to explore the museum’s role in constructing and reconfiguring gendered ways of looking at objects connected with sexuality and/or desire (erotic and pornographic). As a public space where professionals and audiences meet, and where bodies of work from different periods and regions are brought into dialogue, the museum appears here as a privileged observation post. Since the creation of the Gabinetto Segreto at the Naples Archaeological Museum in the early nineteenth century, several museums of eroticism – long-standing or short-lived – have emerged (Amsterdam, Hamburg, Paris, New York City, Mumbai…). Beyond institutions explicitly devoted to erotica, other public, private or community museums have confronted erotic works through temporary exhibitions, acquisitions or cataloguing decisions. In Europe, as well as in Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas, museums have devised specific strategies for conserving, exhibiting or making invisible such representations. Over the last fifty years, interest in these questions within the humanities and social sciences has grown – from Studies in Erotic Art (1970), through Linda Williams’s Hard Core : Power, Pleasure, and the “Frenzy of the Visible” (1989), to Jennifer Tyburczy’s Sex Museums : The Politics and Performance of Display (2016) – before broadening their scope to gender and queer studies. These approaches have shown how museums contribute to the recognition – or exclusion – of certain sexual and gender identities, particularly LGBTQIA+, within public institutions.
Building on these insights, the conference seeks to open an international, transcultural and multidisciplinary discussion of eroticism in museums. How do institutions acquire, classify, exhibit or censor such works – whether objects, paintings, sculptures, photographs, performances, video or digital art ? In particular, what role is played by curatorial self-censorship undertaken in anticipation of audience or governmental reactions ? What forms of mediation and display have been implemented (secret cabinets, shutters and drawers, virtual exhibitions) ? How are the viewer’s body and gaze engaged by these images ? Finally, can we build a critical history of their reception in relation to past and present thresholds of tolerance, bearing in mind artists’ strategies which often unsettle or outwit the museum ?
We invite proposals from scholars across the humanities (art history, cultural and social history, law and legal history, philosophy, sociology, literary studies, etc.). Suggested themes (non-exhaustive)
- Acquisition : criteria and taboos guiding the inclusion (or exclusion) of erotic works in public or private collections ; the “Enfers” of libraries.
- Exhibition : scenography, devices and spatial arrangements, from Antiquity to the digital age.
- Actors : collectors, art dealers, curators, institutions, exhibition designers, conservators, the media, audiences.
- Reception : critical responses and visitor experience, tools of mediation, digital circulation. Submission guidelines
Submission guidelines
Proposals should be sent by 31 March 2026 to all three addresses :
- claire.maingon@u-bourgogne.fr
- m.tauziedeespariat@parisnanterre.fr
- thibault.boulvain@sciencespo.fr
Proposals must contain:
- Paper title.
- Abstract (max. 2,000 characters) : clearly stating the research objectives and the problem addressed, with a brief indicative bibliography.
- Short biography : including academic background, research area and current status (institutional affiliation, research themes, etc.).
- Keywords : 3–5 terms summarising the proposed paper.
Submissions will be reviewed and selected by the organisers with the support of the Scientific Committee. Notifications are expected by 30 April 2026. Papers (30–40 minutes) may be delivered in French or English.
Organising Committee
- Claire MAINGON, Professor of Contemporary Art History, Université Bourgogne-Europe ; LIR3S.
- Maël TAUZIÈDE-ESPARIAT, Associate Professor of Early Modern Art History, Université Paris-10 Nanterre ; HAR.
- Thibault BOULVAIN, Assistant Professor of Art History, Centre d’Histoire (CHSP), Sciences Po, Paris.
Scientific Committee
- Olivier BONFAIT, Professor of Early Modern Art History, Université Bourgogne-Europe (LIR3S) ; Institut universitaire de France.
- Damien DELILLE, Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History, Université Lumière Lyon 2 ; Scientific Adviser, INHA.
- Arianna ESPOSITO, Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology, Université Bourgogne-Europe (UMR 6298 ARTEHIS).
- Guillaume FAROULT, Chief Curator (18th-Century French ; British & American Painting), Musée du Louvre.
- Charlotte FOUCHER ZARMANIAN, CNRS Researcher (HDR), Deputy Director, CRAL (CNRS-EHESS).
- Nadeije LANEYRIE DAGEN, Professor Emerita of Early Modern Art History, École normale supérieure – PSL.
- Nicolas LIUCCI-GOUTNIKOV, Curator ; Director, Bibliothèque Kandinsky (research centre of the Centre Pompidou).
Subjects
- Representation (Main category)
- Mind and language > Representation > Cultural history
- Society > Sociology > Gender studies
- Mind and language > Representation > History of art
- Mind and language > Representation > Heritage
- Mind and language > Representation > Visual studies
- Society > Sociology > Sociology of culture
Places
- Salon d'honneur - campus Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin de Sciences Po Paris
Paris, France (75)
Event attendance modalities
Full on-site event
Date(s)
- Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Attached files
Keywords
- musée, érotisme, collection, exposition, censure, sexualité, pornographie, genre conservation, scénographie, média
Contact(s)
- Claire Maingon
courriel : claire [dot] maingon [at] u-bourgogne [dot] fr - Maël Tauziède Espariat
courriel : m [dot] tauziedeespariat [at] parisnanterre [dot] fr - Thibault Boulvain
courriel : thibault [dot] boulvain [at] sciencespo [dot] fr
Information source
- Claire Maingon
courriel : claire [dot] maingon [at] u-bourgogne [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Éros au musée », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Thursday, October 23, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/15102
