春. 淫夢 I SPRING an exhibition of erotic photography by seven international artists: Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama, Marc Lagrange, Erwin Olaf, Brigitte Carnochan, Julian Lee, Almond Chu 'Spring' refers to new beginnings, hope and youth but also to lust, passion and sex. 'Spring' presents 7 very different interpretations on the theme; from very romantic to very edgy and some with great sense of humor. ‘Spring’. Who doesn’t love spring? In the West, the common association is with rebirth, resurrection and renewal, a time that is youthful, innocent and beautiful. Spring is the story of beginnings. In the Orient, the same ideas apply but there are also strong connotations with sexuality. In Japan, shunga (春畫) woodblock prints – literally translated as ‘images of spring’ – refer to 17th-18th century erotic paintings and woodblock prints. These were originally inspired by Chinese prints called chun gong tu (春宮圖), which can be translated as ‘images to the spring palace’. In China today, 'spring heart' (春心) and 'spring feelings' (春情) can refer to lust, love and passion, while the mention of 'spring pocket' (chun doi) in Cantonese refers to the male scrotum. In photography, many artists are passionate about nudes – for example, Nobuyoshi Araki and Robert Mapplethorpe are equally obsessed with photographing flowers (and often suggesting female and male reproductive organs). AO Vertical Art Space, through this unusual exhibition of six international photographers, is charting a daring path of erotic art through the juxtaposed representations of flowers and the nude figure. The symbolic images convey the vibrancy and eroticism inspired by this exhibition, ‘Spring’.