Ren Hang's Nudes on display for the first time in Italy. At the Pecci Center in Prato

From June 4 to August 23, 2020, the Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato will present for the first time in Italy the exhibition Nudes, works by Chinese photographer and poet Ren Hang (Chang Chun, 1987 - Beijing, 2017), who tragically died by suicide at a young age.

Curated by Cristiana Perrella, the exhibition brings together ninety photographs from international collections with backstage documentation of one of his shoots in the Wienerwald in 2015 and a wide selection of the photo books he produced.

Although his photographs were considered pornographic and subversive in China, Hang never intended to be a political artist; his shots reflect an exploration of the body, identity, sexuality, and the human-nature relationship, starring a new, free and rebellious Chinese youth.

Often nude, his subjects appear on a rooftop among Beijing’s skyscrapers, in a forest of tall trees, in a pond with lotus flowers, in a bathtub among swimming goldfish or in a bare room. Their faces impassive, limbs bent in unnatural poses. Swans, peacocks, snakes, cherries, apples, flowers and plants are used as props and take on great evocative value. Provocatively explicit in their display of sexual organs and poses, at times hinting at sadomasochism and fetishism, Ren Hang’s images are difficult to define, searing and at the same time imbued with a sense of mystery and formal elegance so as to appear poetic and, at times, melancholy.

The models’ similar, slender, off-white-skinned bodies and black hair, red lipstick and enameled nails for the women, are transformed into sculptural forms. Rather than arousing desire, these images seem to want to break taboos concerning the naked body, challenging the traditional morality that still governs Chinese society. Indeed, in China, the concept of the nude is not separable from that of pornography, and the nude, as a genre, has no place in art history. Ren Hang’s photographs have therefore often been censored. “We are born naked...I only photograph things in their most natural condition,” the artist himself had declared.

For info: www.centropecci.it

Hours: Thursday through Sunday from noon to 8 p.m.

Tickets: Full 7 euros, reduced 5 euros.

Image: Ren Hang, Peacock (2016). Courtesy Stieglitz19 and Ren Hang Estate.

Ren Hang's Nudes on display for the first time in Italy. At the Pecci Center in Prato

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