A Savage Affection 以蛮为情

Born in Guandong province and majoring in in financial English from Guangdong University ofForeign Studies, Lin Zhipeng 林志鹏‘s career was at first not at all related to photographic practice.However, through his blog "North Latitude 23" the public was first introduced to his work in 2003, making him known among the virtual community. Over a decade later, Lin Zhipeng (also nick named after the police character in Wong Kar-wai's movie Chungking Express "No.223" ) has become an international exponent of contemporary Chinese photography, with numerous exhibitions both in China and abroad.

Borrowing the oniric landscapes and enigmatic bodies common in the work of new Chinese photographers, the latent eroticism may draw a bridge between Lin's work and that of the late photographer Ren Hang. However, 223 brings on to his work a more playful, impish and even humorous vision to his portraits of today's Chinese youth born in the last two decades of the XXCentury.

Lin's method of approaching the photographic practice is likewise spontaneous and unpreoccupied, composing the image with the actors and objects in an almost improvisational manner.It is common to finds dyes of the erotic and love scenes in his photography, a sort of savage affection between the participants. The term"savage", here, must however be understood as disconnected from any links to barbarism or violence, but referring to a "savage" in the sense of a morally unjudged, culturally unmediated visceral nature of the body and the human.The work acts as a sort of diary, manifesting, although not documenting, his lifestyle and that of his friends, challenging the expectations poured on Chinese artists from within China, but mostly from outside. His work, thus, speaks to both inner and outsider circles, bringing Lin Zhipeng to personify an example of the post-passport artists that embody one of the main characteristics of contemporary Chinese art.