Gao Zhen Detained in China for Old Statues Satirising Mao

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Chinese artist Gao Zhen, one of the Gao Brothers, whose work references the Cultural Revolution, is detained under criminal charges in China for violating a recent law prohibiting the defamation of ‘heroes and martyrs’.

According to his brother, the artist Gao Qiang, police raided Zhen’s studio in Sanhe, Hebei province, on 26 August, seized several works as evidence and arrested Zhen when he refused to give up his mobile phone.

Authorities said the artist is charged under the Heroes and Martyrs Protection Law, which prohibits the slander of figures designated as national heroes. He faces a prison term of up to three years.

A U.S. resident, Zhen was visiting relatives when he was apprehended. His green card-holding wife and U.S. citizen son were prohibited to leave the country. The family moved to New York in 2022, when their son became of school age, citing China’s ‘deteriorating environment’.

The Brothers have made work criticising Mao and his regime since the 1980s, but have stayed away from the topic in recent years.

Their work came to public attention earlier in August when a lawyer in Florida was charged with vandalising a 2009 statue from their ‘Miss Mao’ series—among the satirical effigies of the Communist leader police confiscated.

China introduced the defamation law in 2018 without sanctions. The offence was added to its criminal code in 2021, under President Xi, facilitating crackdown on views that question or challenge the country’s official version of history, including the portrayal of its former leadership.

‘The works the authorities collected as evidence are all from over ten years ago and belong to an old series from a different period,’ Qiang told Artnet. ‘We are completely exhausted from dealing with the ghosts of the Cultural Revolution and have stopped creating such work.’

Renown Chinese writers and poets have rallied alongside Qiang, demanding his brother’s release. In their petition to Chinese authorities, shared by Human Rights in China, the group remarks: ‘The Public Security Bureau of Sanhe City is treating Gao Zhen’s artistic creations as criminal evidence, repeating the persecutions of the Cultural Revolution.’

‘We sense that control over China’s art community is tightening, and anyone could become the next detainee,’ the letter reads. ‘Clearly, this is not the kind of case the Chinese government would want to see as it opens its doors and moves towards globalisation.’ —[O]

Main image: 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.