Rong Rong

Born in 1968, Rong Rong (born Lii Zhirong) is one of the most important Chinese contemporary photographers.
Originally wanting to be a painter, Rong Rong turned to photography co-founding with Liu Zheng, in 1995, a magazine called "New Photo".

His avant-garde works focus subtly changes happening nowadays, at China.
Though, instead of making a clear political statement, Rong Rong uses his creativity to describe the precarious situation brought by changes of the Chinese quotidian.

In this photo, East Village, Beijing, No. 20 (1994), Rong Rong captured the performance of Zhang Huan, another Chinese artist.
The series of photos about this performace - Twelve Square Meters, makes a clear contrast between lack or minimum sanitation which most of the Chinese population around big cities are subjected and the cleanness of Chinese ponds.

Other works by this artist comprise also urban changes, which are transforming most of Chinese city landscapes and questions how China is facing the Globalized world culture (specially about Western influence on traditional Chinese culture).
His series about ruins, for instance, document a soon to be extincted Beijing where traces of human occupation appear in a demolished scenery.
In the middle of so big destruction, life still inhabits those spaces through abandoned memories left behind.

Rong Rong and Inri

Since 2000 this artist works closely with his wife Inri, who is also an extraordinary artist.
Their common work inspires a kind of new beginning for China's population.
Love, discovery, excess, escape and gender questioning seem to be an intrinsic part of their common body of work.
The photo presented is In Fujisan, Japan, 2001 n3.
This photo belongs to a series of black and white photos. It's patent the complicity between Rong Rong and his wife, Inri - their bodies joyfully playing in an arid landscape. Two free spirits, in a performance, happy to be alive despite the desert they are living into. There's no World around them and there's no need for that World's existence since they are together.


Links: Rong Rong and Inri