Tag: ren hang

Ren Hang – Untitled (2013)

It’s a depressing truth: Acetylene Eyes includes far, far too few of Hang’s images. In fact, I’ve only posted one previously–it’s worth revisiting as it’s a damn fine picture but also because I absolutely stand by my commentary.

The confrontational constancy of the work is less off-putting to me now. Yes, it’s trangressive as a hot goddamn. I’ve come to not only admire Hang’s Negative Fucks Given™ tact but to find humor in it.

The humor comes when you realize that he actively lampoons Internet famous photographers. His use of strobe is all Terry Richardson. The work in his second 2014 gallery takes brutal pot shots at the obvious disparity (and disingenuousness) between the public explanations and private intentions of folks like Noah Kalina and Ryan McGinley.

And what I’m realizing is his work also integrates color into not only composition but the image as a whole in ways that very few people since Eggleston have managed.

Ren Hang’s work elicits equal and opposite reactions in me.

Few photographers exhibit such an omnivorous eye; fewer gaze upon such transgressive material.

And I fucking adore Hang’s non-prejudicial and unapologetic depictions of an exceedingly broad range of graphic human sexuality.

Unfortunately, a by-product of what I love also makes the work uncomfortable for me: confrontation.

After more than a half century of pornography rigidly marketed to exclusive sexual demographics, displaying a picture of a woman applying lipstick to her vulva next to a photo of a male-on-male anal sex is an inherently confrontational act. I don’t have a problem with that. In fact, I applaud it: FUCK goddamn centuries of hetero-normativity and straight privilege bullshit.

What bothers me is the way the majority of Hang’s work features on under-current of aggression. As if the inherent confrontation of the presentation takes second seat to something closer to rubbing the viewer’s nose in what is displayed.

Which is why this image stands out to me: the color of the grass so closely matches the color of his skin that the boys erect cock, thrust hips and come-hither eye contact with the camera evinces an almost counter-intuitive vulnerability.

Source: renhang