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GAO BROTHERS

China
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Gao Brothers Biography

The Gao brothers are two Beijing-based artist brothers. Over the past 20 years and since their internationally prominent participation in the exhibition « China / Avant-Garde » in 1989 (National Gallery of Beijing), their art has reached into various mediums including photography, video, painting, sculpture, performance, with them working also as critical writers and even as exhibition curators. In their work can be seen a questioning of humanity and fraternity remaining in contemporary reality. Marked by the death of their father under the Maoist regime, engaged in demonstrations at Tiananmen square (which cost them their passports for several years), the two brothers share a critical attitude towards Chinese society.

Their works form part of the collections of the most important contemporary art museums, including: the China National Museum, the MoMA New York, the Guggenheim Foundation, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Centre Pompidou and the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and the Princetown University Art Museum; as well as large private collections including Steven Cohen, Uli Sigg, Charles Saatchi…

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Representative Artworks

Gao Brothers, Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin's Head (2009). Exhibition view: Grandeur and Catharsis, Kemper Art Museum, Kansas (16 September 2010—1 January 2011). Courtesy Kemper Art Museum.
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Gao Brothers, Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin's Head (2009). Exhibition view: West Hollywood, California (2013). Courtesy Library of Congress. Photo: Carol M. Highsmith.
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Gao Brothers in Ocula Magazine

Gao Zhen Detained in China for Old Statues Satirising Mao
News Gao Zhen Detained in China for Old Statues Satirising Mao Elaine YJ Zheng Zhen was arrested based on works that predate China’s 2018 law prohibiting the defamation of ‘heroes and martyrs’.
Florida Lawyer Admits to Bombing Gao Brothers Statue
News Florida Lawyer Admits to Bombing Gao Brothers Statue Elaine YJ Zheng Christopher Rodriguez confessed to bombing a stainless steel sculpture of Mao Zedong and Vladimir Lenin in 2022.

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