Gao Zheng, a Chinese language artist who received worldwide popularity of works vital of the Cultural Revolution, has been detained in China, his brother and inventive companion Gao Qiang stated on Monday.
The Gao brothers are finest identified for his or her statues of Mao Zedong in a provocative or disrespectful mannerreminiscent of “The Guilt of Mao,” a bronze statue of the chief kneeling in prayer and penance.
Police within the metropolis of Sanhe detained Gao Zheng, who moved to the USA two years in the past, final week whereas on a go to to China, his youthful brother stated in an e mail, on suspicion of defaming Chinese language heroes and martyrs – a crime punishable by imprisonment for up to three years.
Police additionally confiscated a number of of the brothers’ artworks, all of which had been created greater than 10 years in the past and “re-evaluate Mao’s Cultural Revolution,” Gao Qiang stated. Works embody The Guilt of Mao; “The Execution of Christ,” a statue depicting Jesus going through Mao’s firing squad; and “Miss Mao,” a group of statues of Mao with massive breasts and a outstanding Pinocchio-like nostril.
About 30 law enforcement officials raided the brothers’ artwork studio on Aug. 26 in Yangjiao, a city in Sanhe metropolis about an hour from Beijing, Gao Qiang stated. The officers requested Gao Zheng handy over his cellphone, and when he refused, they handcuffed him and arrested him, Gao Qian stated. Gao Zheng had been in China along with his spouse and son visiting family, his brother stated.
The following day, Gao Zheng’s spouse was notified by the Sanhe Metropolis Public Safety Bureau that he was detained on suspicion of defaming heroes and martyrs, Gao Qian stated.
The Sanhe Public Safety Bureau declined to remark.
Defamation of heroes and martyrs was made a criminal offense in 2021 as a part of a not too long ago amended penal code, a part of a marketing campaign by Chinese language chief Xi Jinping to whitewash the Communist Occasion’s model of historical past. “It has been diligently enforced because it got here into impact, with officers establishing phone and on-line hotlines for residents to report violations. A model of the statute was first handed in 2018, however with out legal penalties.
Gao Qian stated he had been severely depressed and had hassle sleeping since his brother’s detention. He didn’t know why the police had arrested Gao Zhen now, for artworks created lengthy earlier than the legislation took impact, he stated.
A lot of the Gao brothers’ works replicate their private historical past. In the course of the Cultural revolution within the Nineteen Sixties and Seventies, their father was labeled a category enemy and dragged to a spot that was “not a jail, not a police station, however one thing else” the place he died, Gao Zhen told The New York Times in 2009.
In 2022, after years of touring between China and the U.S., the place he was a everlasting resident, Gao Zheng moved to New York, his brother stated, each as a result of his son, who’s an American citizen, was reaching faculty age and due to “deteriorating surroundings in China’.
Though the brothers have lengthy been at odds with Chinese language authorities over their politically delicate art work, and have had closed exhibitions and raids on their studio, they’ve not often suffered severe repercussions.
To get across the authorities, they staged invitation-only exhibitions, with the situation solely unfold by phrase of mouth and coded textual content messages hours earlier than the occasions. They designed the Guilt of Mao statue in order that her head might be faraway from the physique, leaving her unidentified.
A decade in the past when Ai Weiwei, China’s most famous dissident artist, was detainedthe brothers additionally “confronted lots of hassle as a result of we accepted interviews with Western media and created artworks that includes political figures,” Gao Qiang stated. “However we have come out the opposite aspect unscathed each time.”
However, he stated, Gao Zheng’s arrest exhibits that “now the area for freedom in China has shrunk loads in comparison with then.”
