Peter Coeln, Ren Hang – At Work, 2024

Peter Coeln: “Ren Hang, like his photographs, was unique: tall in stature and endowed with a special charisma. He stayed in Vienna with his fiancé Huang Jiaqui for fifteen days. They seemed like a happy couple. […] I enjoyed his presence and company, and he seemed to enjoy mine. He liked the city. He informed us that he wanted to do a photo shoot here in Vienna. We organized a casting call for him through an announcement on social media. Then he asked me if I could accompany him and the team for the photo shoot. […] Knowing that he never agreed to be photographed when he was working, I was surprised that he didn’t mind me taking pictures. It was Wednesday, March 25. It was a cool, cozy spring day. There were three completely naked young men in the cold Wien River and then in the “-Wienerwald,” a deciduous forest. They climbed trees, lay down on the ground covered with fallen leaves and bathed in the river water. […] It was intimate. Yet, the three naked people modeling were strangers to each other and to the rest of the small crew. The interaction was playful and fluid. They laughed as they struggled to pose, hanging from a tree like monkeys, with the camera getting closer and closer to their butts, or as they froze and had an erection in the river. Yet, it was serious. They were all engaged in a single vision: that of Ren Hang.