Photographer Ren Hang
Ren Hang had lived for only 29 years but within this short span of time, he managed to incite controversial conversations around Chinese traditionalism which marked him as one of the most provocative and awe-inspiring artists in contemporary China. Ren worked mainly as a photographer and poet, surrounding his art around nudity and eroticism. His oeuvre usually consisted of close friends arranged in different playful natures with suggestive glances at the camera. All of this intended to produce a punch-back against a society that values censorship against reality.
Ren encountered several run-ins with Chinese authorities for the major duration of his career. However, this only brought stronger desires in him to produce art which incites tension and unnerves viewers. This is perhaps the reason why he was invited by Ai Weiwei to collaborate in his Netherlands exhibition. Similarly, he had received strong backing from other activists/artists which allowed him to persevere in his art.
Yet, life for Ren was not short of grievances and suffering. While his work pictured a revolution against Chinese society, Ren was battling his inner conflicts at the same time.
The Point-and-Shoot to Fame
Unlike most Chinese contemporary artists, Ren did not start off his early years being devoted to the arts. On the contrary, his passion came out from mere boredom. While studying Business Advertising at college, Ren decided to purchase a cheap point-and-shoot camera. Everything he learned about photography was taught by himself, being inspired by other artists and other photographers.
The reason why Ren chooses to only shoot his friends is because of his introversion, as he mentions in an interview, ‘I usually shoot my friends because strangers make me nervous.’ His first exhibition in China garnered immense controversy surrounding his explicit imagery. His success was meteoric in the sense that most Western art galleries invited him for exhibitions but Chinese authorities restricted local displays of his work.
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According to Ren, his images are not supposed to be turbulent. Instead, he creates photographs to make a fun environment for both the photographer and the photographed. He even admits that he has no intention to draw in political undertones to his work, but only to have fun as he creates what he loves, ‘I don’t really view my work as taboo, because I don’t think so much in cultural context or political context. I don’t intentionally push boundaries; I just do what I do.’
This distinguishes him from other radical artists such as Ai Weiwei. His photographs might inspire controversy but his intention lies in just having fun. Therefore, many of his photographs are playful performances in which his friends position themselves in theatrical manners. There’s one picture where a group of females pushes their bodies upwards, donning red lipstick with naked bodies. Similarly, another picture from 2013 shows a woman with the same red lipstick and naked body having a couple of pigeons wrapped around her hair.
Disbanding Gender and Sexual Hierarchies
There’s a handful of other pictures that detail homosexuality in sexual connotations. This brand of sexuality which is both performed and dramatized in his pictures represents a catharsis for Ren. Through these pictures, Ren is able to express himself fully and unrestrainedly.
But he believes this expression should not have to be explained to others, which is why he never titles his photographs. ‘I don’t try to get a message across, I don’t give my works names, I don’t date them’ Ren says, ‘I don’t want to instil them with any vocabulary. I don’t like to explain my photos or work as a whole.’
Ren had been arrested several times for his photography, which was considered soft-porn to the Chinese government that had formerly criminalized pornography. However, considering Ren as just a controversial artist would be refusing to acknowledge him as who he truly was: a lover of the arts.
In Ren’s photography, the human body is shown in the most beautiful manner. It is bent and curved, kissed and caressed, admired, and showcased. Nearly all of his photographs are taken at home, structured in unique ways wherein a 2011 photograph of four men and women kissing each other, the viewer questions how they were positioned without having toppled over each other.
Perhaps the most evocative and defining picture taken by Ren is the one with a blue background that faintly mimics the sky and under which is an undulating movement of four buttocks. It shows beautiful imagery that emulates nature as the buttocks look like mountains in a harsh backdrop of blue sky, but in reality, it is entirely made and composed by Ren.
To Ren, bodies are not discriminated against by color or gender. Instead, they are a picture worth framing. Everything about the human body should be celebrated in the beauty that Ren photographs.
The Self-Battle in Poetry of Ren Hang
Aside from photography, Ren relished writing different forms of poetry. He has even had English translations of his poetry published in BHKM, New York. The theme in his poems remains mostly similar, as he describes a beautiful lover and the fear of loneliness when he loses this lover.
These poems began to be glimpses into his personal life. Ren suffered through depression and in 2017, documented the down-spiral into his mental illness through poetry. It was only a few hours after he had published a message on a Chinese social media platform when he killed himself. The message read – Every year, the wish I make is the same: to die earlier.
For the Sake of Natural Beauty
Ren was never interested in politicizing his work. Instead, his only desire was to have a free life, devoid of any restrictions and fear. He once told an editor, ‘I don’t want others having the impression that Chinese people are robots with no c*ck or pu**ies… I want to say that our c*cks and pu**ies are not embarrassing at all.’
Even in death, Ren’s message still stands. It is human beauty that we should strive towards. One of Ren’s models once commented that Ren’s photography intended to ‘breakthrough the social taboo of nudity – for the sake of natural beauty.’