| Biography | About | Artists Represented | Rong Rong

Born in 1968 in Zhangzhou, Fujian

Selected Exhibitions:

1998

Solo exhibition mounted by Galerie H.S. Steinek,Vienna

1997

Contemporary Chinese Photography, Berlin New Art Association

1996

China Avantgarde, Gallery Q, Tokyo

1995

The Witness of Contemporary Art in China, Tokyo Gallery, Japan

Lii Zhirong was Rong Rong's given name. He changed his name shortly after moving to Beijing in the 1990's. Despite his early interest in painting, Rong failed to gain admission to the local art academy. Instead he turned his energy to teaching himself photography. From I989 to 1992, while Rong was employed in his father's grocery store, he spent his spare time roaming the local villages with a rented camera recording the bucolic life of peasants. Eventually Rong saved enough money to purchase his own camera, and with the remainder of his savings, set out for Beijing. He drifted from school to school, and after a series of odd jobs that included a position as a passport photographer, Rong moved to the. East Village, a budding artistic community outside Beijing. With the relaxation of residential restrictions, some experimental artists from different provinces all over China began to flock to this place. Rong seized the opportunity to document the vibrant artistic activities of this art-community in his series Artists in Exile. Yet in 1995, after several artists..were arrested and quarrels erupted over copyright issues regarding Rong's photography, he decided to leave the community. These documentary photographs of the East Village were featured in Rong's inaugural photography exhibition, The Witness of Contemporary Art in China, Tokyo Gallery, Japan ( 1995).

In 1996, Rong established RR Photo Studio and exhibited his new work in China Avantgarde, Gallery Q, Tokyo (1996). Shocked by the unmitigated destruction inflicted on old Beijing by the progress of economic reform, Rong recorded these devastating effects in his next series of untitled works, sometimes referred to as the Ruins series. Like his earlier series, Ruins is a personal response to the verisimilitudes of Rong's artistic environment. The haunting fragments of pasted-up posters of fashion models, use a to decorate the now-ravaged walls depicted in this series, capture a childhood fascination with a pinup poster of the popular singer Deng Lijun, whom Rong fantasized about as a child. Since 1997 Rong's international reputation has grown. After Jean-Louis Drohin curated a solo exhibition of his work at the French Embassy in Beijing in 1997, Rong's photography was included in Contemporary Chinese Photography, Berlin New Art Association (1997), and a solo exhibition mounted by Galerie H.S. Steinek,Vienna (1998). His most recent works include Lives of photographers (1996) and Wedding Gowns (1997-98). Rong Rong currently lives and works in Beijing.