Eros
By Claudia Martin
24 Jun 2008
Wandering on a Korean honeymoon island in May, I literally stumbled upon an Eros Museum. I had been out for a coffee, and the only true coffee shop was at E-Mart a short bus ride from my motel. The Eros Museum was located under a very erotic-looking soccer stadium behind E-Mart. This coincided perfectly with my aimless coffee walk around the parameters. Plus howling winds were urging me indoors. So happening upon this museum was all very unexpected and intriguing. I just read a poster that said "Eros" and thought, hmm, interesting, and followed arrows from the poster to a door, to a little booth with an old man selling tickets for 7,ooo won. After buying a ticket, I walked through several small rooms of "Eros" art.
Like many treasures of Korea, you had to be lost and wandering through dark narrow places to find something so entertaining, inspiring, and erotic. And while the art was self-explanatory to a degree, all the little historical details were in Korean and lost on me. But the message was basic and universal: sex and passion are great things, inspire great things, inspire great big things; no guilt trips here.
Eros is of course the god of love as well as sex and desire. The art depicted everything from modern American Playboy bunnies, to East Asian concubines, to kama sutra poses, some romance, some spiritual love, some pure and creative sex. The museum included about eight crowded rooms of international art sculptures and paintings, an extra room for a porn video behind a black curtain, and then a gift shop of mini glass dildos and tourist paraphernalia sold by a man old enough to be my grandfather.
Well the leaf photo, that was a find on the same day, and it seemed fitting. Everywhere love came forth, in art, in nature. The actual process of the camera work was tricky. Some people scoff at pictures in a museum, saying oh well yes, easy, it's laid out for you. But it is indeed another challenge and originality of design lies with the undertaker of the challenge, as in any creative process. Like all photographic bumblings in a museum, there was no flash or tripod, and everything relied on my steady hands (I have none) and patience (my supply is large but unreliable).
There are many myths surrounding the God Eros. Some say he was the son of Aphrodite. Others say he emerged from Chaos, a void. Hesiod of Theogony said "...and Eros, the fairest of the deathless gods; he unstrings the limbs and subdues both mind and sensible thought in the breasts of all gods and all men." Eros enchants and destroys all reason. With Eros we are left with a mind subjugated to the unsound mind, and hopefully regaining fuel with a sound soul. In Eros there is passion and the Hollywood desire with all attachments and strings. However, there are many forms of Eros, as all Gods are skilled at transformation. Eros, or let's say love, can be a higher love than infatuation, I think. Maybe it's not the stuff of storybooks and myths, but of greater loves, like the gods.
