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Ren Hang
Ren Hang, who took his life February 23, 2017 is an unlikely rebel. Slight of build, shy by nature, prone to fits of depression, the 28-year-old Beijing photographer was nonetheless at the forefront of Chinese artists' battle for creative freedom. Like his champion Ai Weiwei, Ren was controversial in his homeland and wildly popular in the rest of the world. He said, -I don't really view my work as taboo, because I don't think so much in cultural context, or political context. I don't intentionally push boundaries, I just do what I do.-
Why? Because his models, friends, and increasingly, fans, are naked, often outdoors, high in the trees or on the terrifyingly vertiginous rooftops of Beijing, stacked like building blocks, heads wrapped in octopi, body cavities sprouting phone cords and flowers, whatever enters his mind at the moment. He denies his intentions are sexual, and there is a clean detachment about even his most extreme images: the urine, the insertions, the many, many erections. In a 2013 interview VICE magazine asked, -there are a lot of dicks ... do you just like dicks?- Ren responded, -It's not just dicks I'm interested in, I like to portray every organ in a fresh, vivid and emotional way.- True though that may be, the penises Ren photographed are not just fresh and vivid, but unusually large, making one wonder just where he met his friends.
In the same piece, Hang also stated, -Gender isn't important when I'm taking pictures, it only matters to me when I'm having sex, - making him a pioneer of gender inclusiveness. Young fans still eagerly flock to his website, Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr accounts. His photographs, all produced on film, have been the subject of over 20 solo and 70 group shows in his brief six-year career, in cities as disparate as Tokyo, Athens, Paris, New York, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Vienna, and yes, even Beijing. He self-published 16 monographs, in tiny print runs, that now sell for up to $600. TASCHEN's Ren Hang is his only international collection, covering his entire career, with well-loved favorites and many never-before-seen photos of men, women, Beijing, and those many, many erections. We take solace remembering Ren's joy when he first held the book, shared by his long-time partner Jiaqi, featured on the cover.
Text in English, French, and German
Why? Because his models, friends, and increasingly, fans, are naked, often outdoors, high in the trees or on the terrifyingly vertiginous rooftops of Beijing, stacked like building blocks, heads wrapped in octopi, body cavities sprouting phone cords and flowers, whatever enters his mind at the moment. He denies his intentions are sexual, and there is a clean detachment about even his most extreme images: the urine, the insertions, the many, many erections. In a 2013 interview VICE magazine asked, -there are a lot of dicks ... do you just like dicks?- Ren responded, -It's not just dicks I'm interested in, I like to portray every organ in a fresh, vivid and emotional way.- True though that may be, the penises Ren photographed are not just fresh and vivid, but unusually large, making one wonder just where he met his friends.
In the same piece, Hang also stated, -Gender isn't important when I'm taking pictures, it only matters to me when I'm having sex, - making him a pioneer of gender inclusiveness. Young fans still eagerly flock to his website, Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr accounts. His photographs, all produced on film, have been the subject of over 20 solo and 70 group shows in his brief six-year career, in cities as disparate as Tokyo, Athens, Paris, New York, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Vienna, and yes, even Beijing. He self-published 16 monographs, in tiny print runs, that now sell for up to $600. TASCHEN's Ren Hang is his only international collection, covering his entire career, with well-loved favorites and many never-before-seen photos of men, women, Beijing, and those many, many erections. We take solace remembering Ren's joy when he first held the book, shared by his long-time partner Jiaqi, featured on the cover.
Text in English, French, and German
311 pages, Hardcover
First published January 20, 2017
365 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
April 4, 2025
Choreographed and exposed
This collection is neither erotic nor pornographic. In every one of these photographs, there is a strange and unexpected beauty that transcends both Eros and Sexus. This beauty arises not directly from exposed flesh and its contact but from the odd, unique postures and compositions of the bodies. Ren Hang achieves a kind of reversed transgression—a paradox that, given the material, was quite literally eye-opening to me when I first heard it formulated in a Radio France programme about his work. Transgression renversée is an astonishingly accurate definition of the effect of these photos.
Shot with a non-professional, non-digital camera, they possess a deceptively amateurish and vintage texture. They seem like the secret collection of a highly original pervert with an abundance of submissive bodies at his disposal. In reality, Ren Hang was a singular artist who’s creation had to be clandestine in a land where any exposure of the body is potentially deemed pornographic and can be severely sanctioned by the law. He photographed his close friends and, later, some of his most loyal fans—in his apartment, on the cement rooftops of Beijing, and at odd hours in nature and public spaces.
His art is both domestic and outlandish. He balances so many extremes in his compositions, making coincidences of opposites—reaching the heights and depths of weird harmony where the deviant and the sublime meet, where the cheap becomes unique, the raw turns gentle, the exposed remains mysterious, the strange feels intimate, the contorted appears composed. As a Francophile European, I also see in Ren Hang’s work an exotic—and, most likely, unintended—illustration of Mallarmé’s famous line: "La chair est triste, hélas!" ("The flesh is sad, alas!")...
After already many years of fighting with censorship and depression, Ren Hang committed suicide at age 29.
—
With some more photographs on my Substack
This collection is neither erotic nor pornographic. In every one of these photographs, there is a strange and unexpected beauty that transcends both Eros and Sexus. This beauty arises not directly from exposed flesh and its contact but from the odd, unique postures and compositions of the bodies. Ren Hang achieves a kind of reversed transgression—a paradox that, given the material, was quite literally eye-opening to me when I first heard it formulated in a Radio France programme about his work. Transgression renversée is an astonishingly accurate definition of the effect of these photos.
Shot with a non-professional, non-digital camera, they possess a deceptively amateurish and vintage texture. They seem like the secret collection of a highly original pervert with an abundance of submissive bodies at his disposal. In reality, Ren Hang was a singular artist who’s creation had to be clandestine in a land where any exposure of the body is potentially deemed pornographic and can be severely sanctioned by the law. He photographed his close friends and, later, some of his most loyal fans—in his apartment, on the cement rooftops of Beijing, and at odd hours in nature and public spaces.
His art is both domestic and outlandish. He balances so many extremes in his compositions, making coincidences of opposites—reaching the heights and depths of weird harmony where the deviant and the sublime meet, where the cheap becomes unique, the raw turns gentle, the exposed remains mysterious, the strange feels intimate, the contorted appears composed. As a Francophile European, I also see in Ren Hang’s work an exotic—and, most likely, unintended—illustration of Mallarmé’s famous line: "La chair est triste, hélas!" ("The flesh is sad, alas!")...
After already many years of fighting with censorship and depression, Ren Hang committed suicide at age 29.
—
With some more photographs on my Substack
March 23, 2019
I love Ren Hang. I love what he does with bodies. I love his work, and I was so sad to hear that he passed in Feb 2017.
Unfortunately, I wasn't too fond of the photo curation assembled for this photobook by the team at Taschen (which, perhaps, I should've expected, since Taschen is a big porn-y type publisher).
Unfortunately, I wasn't too fond of the photo curation assembled for this photobook by the team at Taschen (which, perhaps, I should've expected, since Taschen is a big porn-y type publisher).
May 7, 2022
This book changed my life.
Read
August 1, 2020ren hang is certainly up there with some of my favorite artists ever. his work achieves perfectly what i think all art should strive for, provocation. this book, published posthumously, serves as a fantastic collection of his life’s work.
December 9, 2025
It's a beautiful book about Ren Hang's work, his photographies, but please be aware that the photographies are very provocative and hard to watch!
I couldn't buy it because it was too difficile for me.
Bonsoir.
I couldn't buy it because it was too difficile for me.
Bonsoir.
March 6, 2020
The book is really nice. Good size for appreciating his photographs and great quality printing. I do wish it had a more in-depth essay and maybe at least the year when each photograph was taken.
It is also missing some of my personal favorites but I can hardly fault the book for that.
It is also missing some of my personal favorites but I can hardly fault the book for that.
March 24, 2023
Wowza.
December 29, 2025
One of the most wonderful artists whose work I've ever had the pleasure of viewing. Ren Hang is truly one of the most impressive portraiture focused artists to ever do it. Every single image is an endlessly creative exploration of the human form, and how it interacts with other humans, animals, objects, and space. Ren Hang established himself as such a prime representative of queer Chinese photography, and queer photography at large. This is another book that I find myself completely enthralled in, constantly looking forward to and wondering what awaits me as I turn the page. Cannot recommend this book enough as an exploration of nudity, portraiture, form, composition, and sequencing. Masterclass in all.
January 28, 2024
This is a photography bind-up, coffee table style book and it is one of my new favourite things in this world
Sometimes you witness art and it just...magically slots into place in your heart and soul. This is INCREDIBLE photography! Playful, imaginative, intimate, fun, reimagining the naked body, sometimes sexy, sometimes sad, always breathtaking to look at.
Ren Hang enters the halls of artists I wish I could've witnessed working, but am eternally grateful to have come across either way. There was just instant connection, like with Francis Bacon, like with Bob Flanagan in recent years. I'm moved and I will be looking into this artist's work THOROUGHLY!
Sometimes you witness art and it just...magically slots into place in your heart and soul. This is INCREDIBLE photography! Playful, imaginative, intimate, fun, reimagining the naked body, sometimes sexy, sometimes sad, always breathtaking to look at.
Ren Hang enters the halls of artists I wish I could've witnessed working, but am eternally grateful to have come across either way. There was just instant connection, like with Francis Bacon, like with Bob Flanagan in recent years. I'm moved and I will be looking into this artist's work THOROUGHLY!
April 16, 2019
The amount of great pictures he was able to produce in such a short photography career is impressive. Also, bearing in mind that the same was done in a country when such an endeavour is still (tragically) considered a crime, it is impossible not to appreciate the work in front of us. Subjectively, though, I will say that I prefer the ones he shot outside of his apartment - around lakes or top of the buildings. The quality of light there is just wow.
July 29, 2023
This book is shortly said Ren Hangs life work. The way he played with the thin border between erotism and art is beautiful.
The pictures are intimate and intense but made with a playful and curious eye.
There is a small text about Hangs life at the start of the book. Would recommend!
The pictures are intimate and intense but made with a playful and curious eye.
There is a small text about Hangs life at the start of the book. Would recommend!
April 30, 2021
Exquisite, tender, funny, affecting. The world through the microcosm of the human form.
April 6, 2022
Te extraño Ren Hang, ojalá tuviera este libro en físico.
Mi fotógrafo favorito.
Mi fotógrafo favorito.
December 5, 2022
RIP REN.
November 2, 2023
8.5/10
June 15, 2023
Ren Hang would deserve a better overview of his work, which will hopefully come sooner than later, but from what is available to ordinary people, this is the best that we can get right now. The cover is lame though.
December 20, 2024
An uncompromising dive into the late Chinese artist’s radical exploration of identity, sexuality, and human vulnerability. Hang’s work challenges cultural taboos while offering an intimate glimpse into the complex intersection of freedom, beauty, and defiance.
September 10, 2019
Ren Hang was a poet battling with life. He deserved a better obituary.
July 12, 2025
Order đợi mòn mỏi 2 tháng thì mới biết Amazon làm mất đơn hàng, chắc rớt xuống biển nên đợi còm cõi thêm 4 tháng nữa mới nhận được sách.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews