REN HANG (CHINA 1987-2017)
Ren Hang was a Chinese photographer, based in Beijing, he gained international recognition for his bold and provocative photographic style, which pushed against the boundaries of sexuality, censorship, and traditional morality in contemporary Chinese society. His work often featuring nude figures, staged intimacy, and surreal gestures was both controversial and celebrated, hailed for its fearless honesty and minimalist beauty.
He used the photographic medium to depict scenes of spontaneity, where the young naked subjects are staged in explicit poses. Ren carefully choreographed the compositional arrangement, iconic make-up (e.g. red lips and red finger nails) and mise-en-scène, all of which straddle between meticulous intentionality and momentary inspiration. Despite the playful and colourful scenes filled with young and beautiful bodies, his images portray certain human conditions filled with loneliness and vulnerability.
223 Lin Zhi Peng CHINA 1979
Lin Zhipeng is a leading figure of new Chinese photography, popularizing his work originally via social media and other online platforms as well as his self-published zines. Lin’s work gives a voice to the post-80’s and 90’s generation of non- mainstream Chinese youth. Amidst an otherwise conservative and often closed traditional society, Lin’s photographs act as a collective not so-private diary of a young generation wishing to escape the pressures from a high-stakes society
Faded flowers tangled with flesh tones, myriad patterns mixing with an emotional ambiguity of both love and chaos, fantasy and eroticism. 223’s works are saturated with a soft sense of carefreeness, a playful innocence, and a certain optimism amidst a hedonist lifestyle going against the expected pleasures and entrapments of the middle class dream.
Now to be seen at the gallery in Brussels: Sick Girl from 4 th April till 25 th of April
John Devos
johndevos.photo (a) gmail.com
