Rong Rong
° 1968
Works in Beijing (), born in Zhangzhou (), lives in Beijing ().
Rong Rong is born as Li Zhirong in Zhangzhou, in the southeastern province of Fujian. In the early 1990s, he moves to Beijing to develop a career in photography and he settles in the now demolished 'urban village' Dashanzhuang ('Mansion on the Hill').
In 1996, Rong Rong sets up the RR Studio. To him, the destruction of old Beijing by the building boom, a result of the ongoing economic growth, comes as a big shock. It results in a new series that remains untitled but is sometimes referred to as the 'ruin series'. Rong Rong's pictures are not only important for documenting the performance of his peers, they also highlight an entire chapter from recent Chinese art history.
Rong Rong belongs to the first generation of Chinese photographers that document everyday life in contemporary China.
