Gao Zhen, a Chinese artist known for his critical positions towards the regime and Maoism, was arrested on Tuesday August 26 for “attacking the reputation and honor of heroes and martyrs.”
They are the most famous and committed Chinese artists of their time. The Gao brothers left their mark on China with their work committed to opposing the Chinese communist regime and the vestiges left by Maoism.
Faced with ever-increasing censorship in their country, the eldest, Gao Zhen, was arrested on August 26, his younger brother Gao Qiang, who recently moved to the United States, said in a letter to the American television channel CNN.
The Chinese government accuses the artist of caricaturing former Communist Party leader Mao Zedong, thereby damaging “the reputation and honor of Chinese heroes and martyrs.” The criminal offense, introduced in 2021, carries a sentence of up to three years in prison.
Committed works
While in China with his wife and child to visit family, Gao Zhen, 68, who lives in the United States, was raided by law enforcement on his workshop on the outskirts of Beijing. Gao Qiang said his brother is now being detained in the city of Sanhe in Hebei province.
At the height of their career in the 1980s and 1990s, the Gao brothers gained international fame for their critical artworks of Chairman Mao Zedong, who led the rise of communist China in 1949.
Among the brothers’ most famous creations is Mao’s Guilta life-size bronze statue dating from 2009. It depicts the former leader of the Communist Party kneeling with his hand on his heart in repentance for his sins.
Another work, and not the least, Miss Mao (2006), monstrous heads whose exaggerated features depict the founder of the People’s Republic of China. Finally, The Execution of Christ (2009) is a variation of several life-sized Mao statues holding the son of God in sight.
A family story
If the Gao brothers’ works are resolutely political, it is because of their family history. Originally from Jinan, the capital of the coastal province of Shandong, they witnessed the arrest of their father, a factory worker, in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, then aged just 6 and 12, reports CNN. Imprisoned and accused of “class enemy”, he allegedly committed suicide in detention a few days later, a version that his family has always doubted.
After the end of the Cultural Revolution, Gao Zhen went to Beijing to protest to the political authorities against his father’s arrest. He ultimately received only a pittance in compensation.
A sign of ever-shrinking freedom since Xi Jinping came to power in 2013, Gao Zhen’s arrest is evidence that freedom of expression has declined significantly in China compared to a decade ago, Gao Qiang said in his letter to CNN. “A healthy society should move toward broadening thoughts and actions, not the other way around,” he said.
