Lin Zhipeng (林志鹏), aka 223
Lin Zhipeng is born in Guangdong province, China and graduated from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies with major of financial English. Lin is a photographer and freelance writer based in Beijing. He constructed a blog entitled North Latitude 23 with millions views and posted his personal photographs and words on it. He has contributed to numerous creative and fashion magazines as editor and writer and has produced photo shoots for magazines such as Vice, S magazine, VISION, iLOOK, City Pictorial, etc and brands such as United Nude, Converse, Glaceau Vitamin Water, Bacardi, etc. He also produced video works such as SANSAR, SCENE, Xanthium, etc. In 2007 he published the independent fashion magazine project TOO and in 2005, 2006 and 2011 published three volumes of photography entitled My Private Broadway. In 2012 he published a personal zine entitled VERSATILE. His photography works were included in 3030:NEW PHOTOGRAPHY IN CHINA, Elephant, Back to Black & White, TELL MUM EVERYTHING IS OK, etc.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2008, Me Party, Songzhuang Art Museum, Beijing, China
2008, Composition In Time, GZOP Lab, Guangzhou, China
Selected Group Exhibitions
2012
Unspecified Urban Site, RH Gallery, NewYork.
ACROSS THE GREAT DIVIDE, White Gloss Gallery. Los Angels.
I have also other favorites, Stacion Gallery, Prishtina.
2011
Earthworm, Lianzhou Foto 2011, China
dAfT，Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai.
Chinese Spring #1，STIEGLITZ19 Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium.
Boys' Little World / 223&Hanchao&Eiki Mori，ZEN FOTO Gallery,Tokyo
Recurrent Shadows—Selected Works from the Three Shadows Photography Award 2008-2011, Hexiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen.
MYRIAD VISIONS－The 2011 Three Shadows Photography Award Exhibition, Three Shadows Photography Art Center, Beijing.
Art Amsterdam 2011 , Netherlands
GTZ Photography Workshop 2011, Berlin, Germany.
2010
5PRCITY, United Nude Miami, Miami, USA
Get It Louder Exhibition, touring exhibition, venues in Shanghai & Beijing
The First International Contemporary Art Festival of China Jimei, Xiamen, China
Caochangdi Photo Spring 2010: ARLES IN BEIJING, Beijing, China
Box II: The Cruelty of Youth, White Space Collection, New York City, USA
2009
LINEART Fair at Flanders Expo Gent , Belgium
China Now –The Edge of Desire, Max Lang, New York, USA
I, I SEE－ Southern Pocket Film festival, Guangzhou, China
2008
Youth Appearance, 4th Lianzhou International Photography Festival, Lianzhou, China
Metamorphosis – New Generation of Chinese Contemporary Photographers, Art Scene China, Shanghai, China
Hidden Life: Apartment Diary, Lin & Keng Gallery, Beijing, China
FotoGrafia International Festival, Rome, Italy
New Photography In China, City Festival, Hong Kong
2007
Sampling: Chinese Young Photographers, Potential Gallery, Beijing, China
Refresh: Emerging Chinese Artists, touring exhibition, ZendaiMoMA, Shanghai, China; ARARIO Gallery, Beijing, China
Get It Louder Exhibition, touring exhibition, venues in Guangzhou, Shanghai & Beijing
2006
Selfhood – Absent Minded , First Lianzhou International Photography, China
2005
Five New Generation Photographers, Pingyao International Photography Festival, Pingyao, China
****
Bibliography
223, My Private Broadway, self published, Guangzhou, 2006
John Millichap (ed), 3030: New Photography in China, 3030 Press, Hong Kong, 2006
Jifan Wong & Cong, I like the city with a bit distance, Rice magazine, July 2006
Joe Magliaro, ‘223’, Theme Magazine, New York, issue 11, fall, 2007
Cynthia, ‘Creative Forces in Beijing’, Milk, August, 2008
Xu Jinglei, ‘Lin Zhipeng Q&A’, Wallpaper.com, September 25, 2008
Sarah Fakray, ‘New faces of Beijing’, Dazed&Confused, December, 2008
Nicki Xiao, ‘The Third Eye on Fashion’, Design 360°, Hong Kong, N.20, March 2009
Pinko, ‘Adolescence is the most creative periods’, The Outlook Magazine, China, July, 2010
Mino, Intimate Bodies Through Lens, Surface, China, June 2011.
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Lin, a former magazine editor at Guangzhou’s entertainment tabloid Modern Weekly, named himself “No. 223” after the lovelorn cop played by Takeshi Kaneshiro in Wong Kar-wai’s cult classicChungking Express. A voracity for international fashion mags led No. 223 to begin snapping his own portraits, turning a Lomo on his circle of friends. Their friendship and desire to see themselves as a part of a global youth culture allowed Lin to capture images that would have been difficult to imagine coming out of China in the not-too-distant past. “A lot of my friends do creative things, so they are probably more open than most. This allows me to photograph them the way I do. They understand what I’m doing,” says Lin.
Magliaro, Joe, ‘223’, Theme Magazine, New York, issue 11, fall, 2007
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“Lin’s works typically have a rough-and-ready feel in which photographic technique is frequently neglected for the sake of compelling immediacy. His subjects seem content to reject all responsibility in pursuit of all-night parties and fashionable indolence.”
Ou Ning, “New Photography and the Media Industry in Guangzhou” in John Millichap, ed., 3030: New Photography in China (Hong Kong: 3030 Press, 2006)
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“Lin’s Works vividly reveal the milieu of the present young generation, which is characterized with a kind of imaginary and whimsical self-entertainment. This is a state of life characterized with consumption, in which they consume both fashion and themselves. He likes to snap the “primary beauty”. This highlighted sense of existential beauty of consuming and being consumed, detached from traditional culture and social common value, is both personal and international – like the web, which is both exhilarating and horrifying.”
Li Xianting, Me Party, exhibition catalogue, Songzhuang Art Museum, Beijing, July, 2008.
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归纳出223的作品主题是：私人派对snap shot，朋友之间刻意的凹造型，富电影剧照感的pose与个别躯体特写。在这些照片之中，“演出”的成分极高，被摄者似乎都有渴望被拍的意识，并且会随 手拈来不同的现实道具。顾铮曾评价223的作品没有“通过摄影区别自己与他人的野心”，欧宁则评价“他们不太关心外面的世界，只是沉溺在自我的放纵里，甚 至有一点点反智的倾向”。但无论如何，他们都不能否定223的重要性。
李照兴，《潮爆中国》，香港，2008
Bono Lee, Chic China Chic, Hong Kong, 2008
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223’s works explore the new Chinese way of life, allowing the viewer a personal look inside the homes and hang-out spots of teenagers and young adults as they song, smoke, shower, get stoned or brush their teeth. Sometimes they’re naked, still something of a taboo here, but because No.223 self-publishes his photo book, he can fill them with whatever he likes.
Sarah Fakray , “New faces of Beijing”, Dazed&Confused Magazine, London, Issue Dec.2008
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Lin’s works, talk about the story about young, or should say about emotion. Emotion to a thing, to a person, to a story, brings out the inspiration, and directs his photographing motif. Technique is always behind. The key is the real feeling. If not being loved of doing one thing, one can only make it incondite and apathetic.
Nicki Xiao, “The Third “Eye” On Fashion”, Design 360° Magazine, Hong Kong, N.20, March 2009
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Blissfully young and tragically hip, 223 renders visible China’s seductive spaces of pain and pleasure and cool. The saturated colors and glistening bodies, inturn,map the dreamscape of a generation.
JamesValice，艺术界LEAP, April 2011