No, not that. This is the recently unearthed secret stuff from the bowels (so to speak) of the Bibliothèque Nationale called "L’Enfer de la Bibliothèque, Eros au secret."
The New York Times had a piece on the exhibition a while back that interested me, but it was only at lunch today that one of my dining partners insisted that I go, although she said her son wouldn't go with her, correctly surmising that he would rather be making jokes with his pals about this collection.
And with good reason. It's very antiquated material, Japanese "cartoons," innumerable books and one hilarious 1921 porno film, that, if I'm correct, proves the dictim that "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" has merit.
I can hardly be held as an expert in 18th and 19th century erotic texts, but this seems to be pretty tame stuff, despite the plunges into sadism and cross-cultural dirty etchings. Plus, and as far as I'm concerned this is a big detraction, despite the intention of the city fathers to have the metro (#14) exit directly into the Library, one still suffers the cold winds blowing across the river and over the train-tracks as one treks over to the BN and up those treacherous steps and down the broken moving sidewalk.
Apparently, tout Paris wants to know what they'll do with all this after the exhibition is over, re-inter it in the scholars' only hideaway or keep it on exhibition. Quite frankly, I don't give a damn, the 1996 exhibition - Féminin-Masculin, le sexe de l'art - at the Pompidou was far racier and interesting.
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