26 February 2017 // Florine van Rees //Rotterdam

//REN HANG

Chinese photographer Ren Hang (1987) is one of the most controversal photographers of our time. He tragically died this week at the age of 29, leaving a legacy that we can all learn from and get inspired by. 

His poetic pictures show provocation, erotism, nudity and portraits of intimacy-with-a-twist. Hang is fascinated about the realness of the body and shows us directly how it is. We think we understand what he means, for the images he creates are simple, refreshing and often humorous. Even though he’s not trying to tell his viewers anything, his images deliberately challenge the conventional codes of morality in China.

It comes as no surprise that his explicit photography has made it difficult for Hang to find galleries in his homeland willing to show his work. And even though the internet has helped Hang reach his audience, in China his websites are still quickly shut down once he puts them up. This is by no means the case in the rest of the world, where other rules of censorship apply: his images have been widely exhibited and the artist’s work has appeared in leading international indie periodicals, such as Purple Fashion Magazine and Obsession Mag.

It feels like a blessing of  timing that as of now, the work of Ren Hang is being featured in the FOAM photography museum in Amsterdam. You can see and read all the information on the following link: https://www.foam.org/nl/museum/programma/ren-hang

The exhibition is being showed until the 12th of March - this is the time to see it.