Physical Borderline

Physical Borderline is the catalogue Three Shadows Photography Art Centre published for Ren Hang's 2014 exhibition of the same name, a body of work that pushes his nude portraiture toward its most contorted, sculptural extreme.

Produced in a single printing of 500 copies to accompany the Beijing exhibition, the 128-page book collects images in which Hang arranges his mostly unclothed subjects into improbable, interlocking shapes, treating the body as raw material rather than as a site of modesty or shame. It is one of the more substantial of Hang's self-published and small-press catalogues.

Ren Hang (1987–2017) worked almost exclusively with friends and acquaintances as models, photographing them nude in domestic interiors and on rooftops with a directness that repeatedly drew the attention of Chinese authorities. Physical Borderline sits alongside his other Beijing-published titles, including Huang Jiaqi, among the small run of books that circulated before his death in 2017.