A few weeks ago we featured the photographs of Chinese artist Ren Hang. The controversial photographer, whose work is banned throughout most of his native country, has a new book entitled Republic for sale. Le Journal de la Photographie had a short conversation with the artist about his new book, providing us with some wonderful thoughts on censorship and nudity.

Beijing-based photographer Ren Hang's images are uncensored, erotic, dirty, raw, somewhat deranged... you get the point. His work is censored in China but he has a growling list of international shows. He's pretty badass and doesn't seem to have a limit, and the images we chose are even toned down a bit compared to some of the others on his website which you should check out. They cast light on an otherwise shadowy Chinese underground youth culture, where lust and indulgence run as rampant as anywhere else in the world

Ren Hang's photographs are provocative and awesomely weird. He works and lives in Beijing, and he won the third TERNA Italy prize in 2011. Hang examines the strange interactions of the body, juxtaposing flowers and nude limbs in absurdly-cropped compositions to highlight the negative space that develops between people. Splashes of red strawberries or flowers often punctuate these photos, making them pieces of graphic design as well as photographs. Ren Hang's work addresses the absurdity of the human and the form it inhabits.   

Beijing based photographer Ren Hang takes his provocative vision outdoors with this series of outdoor nudes. Of course, Hang's striking erotic photographs have been banned in China, but with a growing list of international shows, his work manages to escape the confines of censorship in the variety of other outlets his work can be seen.

In his native Beijing, Ren Hang is viewed as a counter cultural photographer, documenting his city's uneasy transition into a more liberal society in the wake of the 2008 Olympics. A desire for freedom and sense of youthful angst pervade Hang's images, capturing the conventionally suppressed aspects of the human experience - emotion and sexuality - as they burst at the cultural seams and spill out into the public sphere.

Based in Beijing, photographer Ren Hang's provocative images cast light on an otherwise shadowy Chinese underground youth culture, where lust and indulgence run as rampant as anywhere else in the world. Predictably, Hang's stark erotic photographs have been banned in China, but with a growing list of international shows, his work escapes the confines of censorship and illuminates hidden corners of Chinese society.