Background
Rong Rong was born in 1968, in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, China.
Rong Rong and his wife Inri.
Rong Rong and his wife Inri.
Rong Rong was born in 1968, in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province, China.
In 1986, Rong studied painting at Fujian Industrial Art Institute in China. Later, in 1992, he attended the Photography Department of Central Industrial Art Institute in Beijing.
In 1993, Rong Rong lived in Beijing’s East Village, where he documented the lives of the artist's friends and performance art happenings. In 1996, the artist established a New Photo magazine and acted as a magazine publisher. Since 2000, he has been creating art together with his wife and partner, Inri. In 2007, the couple established Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing. They also started the annual Three Shadows Photography Award to discover and encourage China's most promising photographers. In addition, in 2001, Rong took part in the KUNST Artist-in-Residence program in Vienna, Austria.
During his career, Rong participated in numerous group exhibitions, including "China's New Photos: Three Persons Show", Tokyo Gallery, Tokyo (1995), "Chinese Avant-Garde Art", Gallery Q, Tokyo (1996), "Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century", Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois (1999), "Big Torino 2000: Biennale of Emerging Artists", Torino, Italy (2000), "China Art Now!", Singapore Art Museum, Singapore (2001), "Dream 02", Red Mansion Foundation, London, United Kingdom (2002), "A Strange Heaven", Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague, Czech Republic (2003), "About Beauty", House of World Cultures, Berlin (2005), "Inner Scopes", Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai, China (2006), "Convection", Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing, China (2007), "Post New Photo", Chambers Fine Art, Beijing, China (2010), "Monumental", Walsh Gallery, South Orange, New Jersey (2011), "Transformation: A View on Chinese Contemporary Art", Istanbul Modern, Turkey (2012).
His selected solo exhibitions include "Ruin Pictures: Rong Rong", Chambers Fine Art Gallery, New York City (2001), "Rong Rong: Retrospective", Galerie Loft, Paris (2002), "RongRong’s East Village", Chambers Fine Art Gallery, New York City (2003), "Beyond", Walsh Gallery, Chicago (2005), "RongRong & inri: The Power of Ruins. Between Destruction and Construction", Casa Asia, Madrid and Barcelona, Spain (2008), "RongRong & inri", MEM Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2010), "Tsumari Story", Three Shadows Photography Art Center, Beijing, China (2014), "The Focus: RongRong & inri", the Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth, Fort Worth, United States (2015) and others.
Currently, Rong lives and works in Beijing.
2000 Beijing No. 1 (1)
No. 3 (1) Beijing
1997 No. 2
1996 No. 9
East Village No. 01, Beijing
East Village, Beijing No. 20
Untitled, No. 25
In the Great Wall of China, No. 3
In Fujisan Japan, No. 1
In Fujisan Japan, No. 13
Caochangdi Beijing, No. 1
Liulitun, Beijing. 2002 No. 13
Caochangdi, Beijing. 2007 No. 1
East Village, Beijing, No. 81
Liulitun Beijing No. 2
Liulitun Beijing
Caochangdi Beijing, No. 5
The works of the Sino-Japanese artistic duo Rong Rong and his wife and artistic partner Inri reflect the intimate world, that they have created together while pushing the boundaries of traditional black-and-white darkroom techniques. Their series of works, such as "Mt. Fuji", "In Nature" and "Liulitun", focus on the beauty of the human body in nature and the urban environment.
The destruction of an artistic community East Village in the outskirts of Beijing and the demolition of the district of Liulitun, where the couple lived, had a great impact on their work. In reaction to these events, they created a series of works, in which they staged their everyday life amongst the ruins. Since then, they have continuously visualized their environment.
Rong is married to a Japanese woman, Inri, who is also his artistic partner. They met in 1999 at Rong's solo exhibition in Tokyo. Although they did not understand each other's languages at that time, they communicated with each other, using art as their common language. The couple gave birth to several children.