Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum presents an exhibition of the artists RongRong&inri, the curator is Wu Hung. The exhibition features the works created by these two photographers over twenty-plus years, and their latest works which will be shown to the public for the first time.
This year is the 20th anniversary of RongRong&inri’s joint creation, it also coincides with the opening of Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum for two years. On this particular day, we will celebrate together and enter the world of RongRong&inri’s creation to see the charm of image art.
Trace The Photographic Journey of RongRong&inri
by Wu Hung
Photography registers the traces of light; photographs bear the vestiges of photographers’ lives.
This exhibition features works created by two outstanding contemporary photographers over twenty-plus years, from the mid-1990s to the present. Filled with feeling and emotion, these images compose an epic of two intimate lives.
One of them was born in Fujian, China; the other in Kanagawa, Japan. Without knowing each other, they simultaneously abandoned the pervasive pretentiousness in 90s’ photography, focusing their lenses instead on ruined environments and damaged bodies, men and women in shadows, performances in life and life in performances.
They finally met, not through language but through photography. What followed was a coalition of their photographic vocabulary, technique, and subject. Two rows of footprints merged into a single track; they appeared before and behind the same camera.
Their artistic activities began to cross national borders; their mission also expanded from making pictures to creating photographic centers and promoting international exchanges. But they are still artists at heart, and thus have to discover themselves in the art of photography.
The structure of this exhibition echoes this journey: the two galleries correspond to China and Japan, the two places where they live and work. The “China” section starts with RongRong’s early series, and continues to showcase the two photographers’ collaborative works in China. The “Japan” section begins with inri’s early works, then features several series which they have created together in Japan. While pondering how these images fuse life and art, the audience may also reflect on how the tide of internationalization since the 1990s has generated new opportunities for contemporary art.
Wu Hung
Curator
The Photographic Journey of RongRong&inri
April 27 – October 31, 2021
Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum
Hall B&C
No. 889, Jinfu Road
Jinniu District, Sichuan, China
