Ren Hang and the Production of the Hidden Idealized Body in China by B
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Ren Hang and the Production of the Hidden Idealized Body in China By Brad Feuerhelm, ASX, April 2015 http://www.americansuburbx.com/2015/04/ren-hang-and-the-production-of-the-hidden-idealized-body-in- china.html First, let it be said that this oversize production by dienacht of Ren Hang’s worK is lush and beautifully crafted. The pages overlap and folds of the bodies within become further entangled in a well thought through production. Ren Hang has made it a point to say that he is not making worK that is politicized. He has been aligned with Ai Weiwei in the past and the socio-political action of uncovering years of communist censorship in producing sexually-charged Chinese bodies in his oeuvre are a direct consequence of globalization and a shift towards how Hang looKs at his own desires within the system. To say that he is not politically active is a bit disingenuous within the frameworK of his production. It is as if to say, he wants to push the boundaries of how we looK at his desire and the naked Chinese form without enmity. This seems a bit hopeful given the current mood of Chinese government suppression. To act out of one’s desire that has been purposefully cloaked under ideology is in fact a direct transgression against the state. This will liKely have a further consequence to Hang’s life and worK as his aesthetic and worK travels globally. I would expect we will see some control apparatus to further intervene at some point. It’s easy to sit here from the west and champion his worK. It is beautiful, if a bit of a one-tricK pony. It could also be questioned that we are observing the hidden or unseen Chinese body with some amount of spectacle. There is almost a voyeuristic tourism involved by the western eye bound to the boom of his career. His worK, though superb owes much to the tradition of Helmut Newton and western fashion employ of the sexualized body. Within the frameworK of looKing at his worK through western eyes, I almost recall a feeling of being at a human zoo. I’m not sure what this says about the worK or myself, but for the time being, it seems important that it is conducted. I do hope Hang will find the freedom to continue the creation of worK. My more sincere hope is that it evolves and enables a further communication outside that of the sexualized idealism that it currently panders to within Chinese culture. Perhaps this is also why the worK should not be read as political after all as the idealized nude is something the west has been investigating for some time. We have struggled to understand our body and the ideals pushed on us through consumer culture and gender dis-equilibrium. Within Hang’s production, there is a tendency to use idealized models as his subject matter. That is not to say that it is Hang’s problem to represent the body any differently, but it is a question we should consider while viewing the spectacle of its presence. Ren Hang's controversial photography On site for a Shanghai shoot with the young Chinese artist http://www.timeoutshanghai.com/features/Art-Art_Features/21718/Ren-Hangs-controversial- photography.html This article originally appeared in the September 2010 issue of Time Out Shanghai. Since the article was published, Ren Hang has gone on to shoot for numerous fashion brands, magazines and artists around the world. A selection of Ren Hang's work is currently on display as part of Minsheng Art Museum's Contemporary Photography in China 2009-2014 exhibition. In the crumbling, half-demolished clocK tower of an abandoned 19th century school building, a young man furiously unravels a reel of old audio tape that he’s just found on the floor. He attaches the aged silver wheel to a section of the wall and pulls until his hands and the floor beside him are covered. LooKing around, he begins to drape the tape around a decrepit window frame and over a girl wearing a head-dress made from doll’s legs. Welcome to the world of avant garde photographer Ren Hang. The dilapidated building is the former St Mary’s school, built in 1881 and once attended by Eileen Chang, author of Lust, Caution, but since half-demolished by developers. Given a last minute reprieve by the government, the building has been in limbo since mid-2009, half falling down and succumbing all around to creepers and urban decay. As lightning flashes across the sKy outside, it makes for a hauntingly dramatic setting. The girl with the doll’s leg head-dress, actually a home-made necKlace repositioned by Ren, is San San, who together with her band Boojii and local singer Little PunK, has just scaled a wall to get into the site. After scrabbling over the bricKworK under the cover of darKness, the group fight their way through overgrown weeds to get to the main school building, a mobile phone torch lighting the way. At one point, guitarist Han Han bashes some towering vegetation out of the way to clear a path. ‘No, no, no!’ shouts Ren, ‘we might need that later.’ For Ren, everything is a potential prop and there are photo opportunities everywhere. His reputation is such that the Beijing-based photographer also has an endless supply of models upon his first visit to Shanghai. Less than half an hour after stepping off a midnight flight from Chengdu, the Changchun-born photographer’s phone is buzzing with people desperate to meet him. ‘A few people have found out I’m in Shanghai so they Keep calling me,’ he shrugs on the airport bus. ‘Usually I just use my friends as there aren’t many people who are willing to be shot the way I want to shoot them.’ The way he wants to shoot them is usually without their clothes on. His images of the human form – both male and female – are provocative: in one series, a girl suggestively straddles a horse; in another, an erect penis is pictured next to a hand giving the camera the finger, creating an odd symmetry; in yet another, a pretty young girl places a lit cigarette between her legs. His arresting photos drew gasps from the audience at a recent slideshow of his worK at Yuyintang, yet he protests that his photos ‘contain no meaning whatsoever.’ Ren only began taking photos two years ago, but the self-taught 23 year-old’s uncompromising worK has led to him becoming one of Beijing’s most in-demand photographers, with bands such as Pet Conspiracy stripping off for his magazine, Moon. Mild-mannered and unfailingly polite in person, Ren spends nearly every waking moment of his time in Shanghai either on photo shoots or arranging them. despite such congeniality, he is demanding behind the camera. His models are given precise orders for every positioning, from the tilt of their heads to the angles of their feet. But such demands are the manifestation of a singular vision – Ren Knows exactly how he wants a photo to looK and will get his subjects to contort their bodies to any angle in order to achieve it. The results are stunning. The pains that Ren goes to in order to get his compositions how he wants them (at one point during the Boojii shoot, he adjusts individual strands of hair on Han Han’s head) create bold, striKing images. And though at times it can seem liKe everyone in China is surgically attached to a digital SLR, Ren is steadfastly analogue. ‘I’ve always shot onto film,’ he says. ‘I prefer things to looK natural and you can only get that on film.’ Ren freely admits that his worK is not palatable to some however, and it’s hardly surprising that his family remain unaware of the majority of his art. ‘I’ve shown my parents some photos, the ones where people have clothes on, but they didn’t really have any strong feeling about them. They’re not against me taking photos, they just thinK it’s a hobby.’ He accepts that their willingness to let him indulge this ‘hobby’ would be tested were they to see the entirety of his collection however, noting that he’s experienced problems with his photos before. ‘I’ve had a few exhibitions shut down or photos removed because they’re not too harmonious. In a lot of my worK you see absolutely everything,’ he says with a wave of his hand from head to foot. ‘I’m not sure how comfortable people are with that.’ For now, Ren doesn’t seem to be struggling to find people willing to pose for him however. Shortly after his slideshow at Yuyintang, he is approached by a girl who wants him to shoot her. A few minutes later she is naked and lying beside a pond in the parK next door as Ren’s camera flashes away. The next day, at St Mary’s school, Boojii and Little PunK also accede to the photographer’s demands, and shed various items of clothing, twisting their heads into antique chests of drawers and clambering around the unstable-looKing building in the darKness. BacK out on the road after the shoot (and a run in with a rather angry guard), Ren is satisfied. ‘That place was great,’ he grins, dousing his hands with water and brushing the dust from his jeans. ‘Really dirty, but great.’ The Art of Taboo - Ren Hang http://www.vice.com/video/the-art-of-taboo-ren-hang Being a radical artist in China is a pretty tricKy prospect.