Ren Hang - For my Mother - 2019

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Ren Hang’s analog photographs use a playful, humorous visual language to relate the feelings, desires, fears, and loneliness of a young generation in China. His works stand as symbols of the youth’s rebellion against the conventions of a restrictive communist regime in which nudity and sexual freedom are subject to government censure and control even up to the present day. Most of the people portrayed are the artist’s friends, but they remain unnamed and anonymous, and the images bear neither title nor place nor date. Although carefully staged, they are infused with an element of fleetingness and evanescence that is often the result of the artist’s quick way of working. Ren Hang’s photographs are a rare ode to human beings, their bodies, sexuality, beauty, and vulnerability.

Ren Hang (b. 1987 in Changchun, China, d. 2017 in Beijing) was a photographer and poet. In 2010 he received the Third Annual Prize for Contemporary Art. His works have been shown in China and Europe at venues including Foam—Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, MdbK in Leipzig, Ostlicht—Galerie für Fotografie in Vienna (2017), and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris (2019). He produced numerous photobooks and published his photographs on his website, Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr. His work has gained a growing posthumous following and immense popularity worldwide. Up to his death by suicide at the age of twenty-nine, Hang lived and worked in Beijing.