Ren Hang

Ren Hang (; March 30, 1987 – February 24, 2017) was a Chinese photographer and poet.

During Ren's incipient career, he was known mostly for nude photographic portraits of his friends. His work is significant for its representation of Chinese sexuality within a heavily censored society. For these erotic undertones, he was arrested by PRC authorities several times. "The images are fresh, but also empty and superficial. They contain a deep sadness within", commented by Ai Weiwei on Ren's artworks. Ren's erotic, playful and casual yet provocative expression gained him worldwide fame and recognition.

Biography Early life Ren was born in 1987, in a suburb of Changchun, Jilin province, in northeastern China. As a self-taught photographer, he said his style of photography was inspired by the artist Shūji Terayama. On January 27, 2017, which is also the eve of the Chinese New Year, Ren posted his last Weibo, saying that "every year my wish is always the same: to die earlier."

Works Photography Ren first began taking pictures of his roommates and friends in 2007, shooting them in the nude as all were close and seeking excitement. In an interview, he also admitted: "I usually shoot my friends, because strangers make me nervous." This may account for his reticence to limit his work to indoor settings. He said there were no preferred places for him to work, as he believed anywhere was beautiful and worthy to be shot, including sparse studios, parks, forests, and atop buildings. Ren's photos employ nude groups and solo portraits of men and women often contorted into highly performative positions.

Ren also kept a personal photo collection titled I Hate My Past and I Don't Want to Know My Future that featured portraits of every person he met, as well as ornaments like used condoms, hair, or mark-making to go with each photo.

Poetry Ren published his first English translated collection of his poetry in January 2017 by BHKM, New York, which selectively contained his poems from 2007 to 2016 named Word or two, and a collection of poetry in Chinese by Neurasthenia, Taiwan, which contained his poems from 2007 to 2013 named Poem Collection of Renhang. This poetry is mainly about his enthusing emotions on describing the ideal love and life with lovers as well as the fear and loneliness when losing loves. The emotional erotic poetry usually comprises a handful of short lines, the tone ranging from humorous to sensual to dark. Here is an extract from a 2016 poem called Love:

Love

My kisses compactly join as a line, like the snake swims around each rugged reef on your trembling body, then you turn into the snake, I turn into the reef, and then we turn into snakes, intertwining together, we turn into reefs, striking each other.

Inside the bedroom filed with our fingerprints, those fingerprints keep enlarging, turn into growth rings, turn into mazes. We are lost with the whole world.

Ren Hang also expressed his homosexual experiences and identity in his poem collection published in 2016 by the independent publishing house EDITIONS BESSARD. Here is a poem written by Ren in 2008:

Throughout his life, he endured a long battle with depression, an experience he would often document on his website under a menu item titled My Depression. Here he recorded, sometimes in the form of poetry, his inner struggles against depression, including frequent hallucinations and hearing voices. In one poem, he wrote:

Gift

Life indeed is a precious gift but I often think it seems sent to a wrong person

Style and controversies Ren Hang is noted to be greatly influenced by Chinese and Asian contemporary art and in particular, Japanese photographer and contemporary artist Nobuyoshi Araki, as well as the Japanese poet, film director, and photographer Shuji Terayama.

Ren Hang mainly worked with a simple point-and-shoot camera. He would direct the models as to how to place their bodies and shoot in quick succession. Genitalia, breasts and anuses were not covered up, but featured, or accentuated with props and close-ups. Colors were rich and high in contrast, increasing visual impact. This, along with the fact all bodies were slim, lithe and relatively hairless, made the impact of his photographs more impressive. His work communicated a raw, stark aesthetic that countered taboos and celebrated sexuality. Someone concluded it was this contemporary form of poeticism in a visual context in which Ren Hang expressed themes of identity, the body, love, loss and death. Trailer 1, Trailer 2,

Publications Ren Hang 2009–2011. China: self-published, 2011. Room. China: self-published, 2011. Edition of 600 copies. Nude. China: self-published, 2012. Edition of 500 copies. Republic. Norway: Éditions du LIC, 2012. Edition of 500 numbered copies. Poem Collection of Renhang. Taiwan: Neurasthenia, 2013. My depression. China: self-published, 2013. Son and bitch. Taiwan: Neurasthenia, 2013. The brightest light runs too fast. France: Editions Bessard, 2013. Edition of 500 copies. Issued with signed C-Print. Physical borderline. China: ThreeShadows +3 Gallery, 2014. Food issue. China: Same studio, 2015. 野生 = Wild. Germany, Die Nacht, 2015. Edition of 600 copies. A collection of unbound posters "published in conjunction with the exhibition Ren Hang / 野生 at OstLicht Gallery, Vienna," 2015. New Love 新欢. USA: Session 6, Session Press, 2015. Edition of 500 copies. 上海游客 Shanghai Visitors. China: self-published, 2015. 海鲜派对 Seafood Party. China: self-published, 2015. 一月 January. China: self-published, 2016. Edition of 100 copies. 二月 February. China: self-published, 2016. Edition of 100 copies. March. China: self-published, 2016. Edition of 100 copies. April. China: self-published, 2016. Edition of 100 copies. May. China: self-published, 2016. Edition of 100 copies. June. China: self-published, 2016. Edition of 100 copies. July. China: self-published, 2016. Edition of 100 copies. August. China: self-published, 2016. Edition of 100 copies. September. China: self-published, 2016. Edition of 100 copies. October. China: self-published, 2016. Edition of 100 copies. November. China: self-published, 2016. Edition of 100 copies. Athens Love 雅典的爱. USA: Session 8, Session Press, 2016. Edition of 500 copies Word or two 只言片語. USA: BHKM, 2017. BAO. Sweden: Totem Collective in collaboration with Ren Hang, published posthum, 5. March 2017,

Solo exhibitions In Addition to Sleep, Fotogallerie vaslisouza, Oslo, 2014 Hide by Ren Hang, MOST 2414 & MOST Gallery, Soy Sauce Factory, Bangkok, 2014/15 In Addition to Sleep, Copenhagen Photo Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark, curated by Fotogallerie vaslisouza, 2014 The Wild, , Vienna, Austria, 2015 Ren Hang, 2014, Gallery Capricious 88, 88 Eldridge Street, 5th FL, New York, USA, March 6 – April 5, 2015 OccupyAtopos exhibition, part of the artist residency program, ATOPOS cvc, Athens, Apr 22 - Jun 17, 2015 Athens Love, Klein Sun Gallery, New York, 2015 Naked/Nude, Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 2017 Human Love, Fotografiska, Stockholm, Sweden, 2017 Ren Hang, posthum, Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig, Germany, coop. w. OstLicht, Vienna, 2017/18 Love, Ren Hang, posthum, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, 2019; C/O Berlin, Berlin, 2019/20 Ren Hang. Nudi, posthum, Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy, 2020

Awards 2010: Third Terna Contemporary Art Award, Italy 2016: Outset|Unseen Exhibition Fund