Ex-eroticis: art and pride of secret books

As part of this year's Printemps carougeois 2024, the Centre Maurice Chalumeau en sciences des sexualités de l'Université de Genève (CMCSS) invites you to discover a selection of ex-eroticis from the "Michel Froidevaux" collection, bequeathed to the University of Geneva in 2022.

By its very nature, its history and its iconography, the ex-eroticis - an erotic ex-libris - has many links with secrecy. Whether the representation is erotic or frankly explicit, like all bookplates, the ex-eroticis is originally a small-format illustration, often a print commissioned from an artist, affixed to the cover of the book to identify its owner. Initially housed in private libraries, often in the underworld where forbidden works were kept, ex-eroticis gradually lost their original function and, by the early twentieth century, had become collectors' items and objects of exchange in their own right.

The exhibition aims to shed light on a large number of them, grouping them around a number of recurring themes. Often evoking humour, playfulness and irony, these prints attract and stimulate the eye, demonstrating an astonishing inventiveness and richness in the representation of eroticism and sexuality.