A Queer Way of Life: Ren Hang’s Photography

Bao, Hongwei

Abstract

This article focuses on queer representations in Ren’s artworks gathered from the private collections of his friends. In doing so, I hope to expand on the existing critique of heteronormative essentialism in contemporary art and popular culture in China. Ren’s works capture, and vividly document, a largely underground and now disappearing, queer subculture in urban China at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Such a subculture is worth remembering, as we are increasingly living with reified and commodified gender and sexual identities under state censorship and neoliberal capture.

Citation

Bao, H. (2021). A Queer Way of Life: Ren Hang’s Photography. Yishu, 20(1), 67-80

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 1, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021-05
• Deposit Date: Jun 18, 2021
• Journal: Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art
• Print ISSN: 1683-3082
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 20
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 67-80
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5691436
• Publisher URL: https://yishu-online.com/browse-articles/?1065
• Additional Information: Spring/Summer 2021