Gao Zhen is taken away in handcuffs shortly before his family was due to board a plane for New York.
By Kitty Wang for RFA Mandarin
Read RFA coverage of this story in Mandarin
Chinese authorities are holding Gao Zhen, one of the Gao Brothers artistic duo, on suspicion of ‘insulting revolutionary heroes and martyrs,’ after seizing satirical artworks depicting Chairman Mao from his home studio, Radio Free Asia has learned.
Gao Zhen, 68, who with his brother Gao Qiang has a global reputation for works of political satire, was detained by police in Sanhe city in the northern province of Hebei on Aug. 26, according to a detention notice sent to his family the following day, Gao’s lawyer and friends told RFA Mandarin.
The Gao Brothers’ dissident artwork has been shown at many venues overseas, but not publicly displayed in China since they signed an open letter from dissident physicist Fang Lizhi to then supreme leader Deng Xiaoping during the pro-democracy movement of 1989.
Police detained Gao Zhen at around 9.00 a.m. on Aug. 26, rushing into his apartment and taking him away in handcuffs, while searching his studio and questioning his wife for several hours, according to an Aug. 31 post on the Gao Brothers’ Facebook page.
State security police confiscated books, computer hard drives, and sculptures and artwork relating to late supreme leader Mao Zedong, the post said.
All of the works taken by police were created more than a decade ago, before laws on protecting the reputation of “revolutionary heroes and martyrs” took effect, it said.
China passed a law criminalizing “insults” to the ruling Communist Party’s canon of revolutionary heroes and martyrs in 2018.
Gao is currently being held in the Sanhe Detention Center on suspicion of “infringing the reputation of revolutionary heroes and martyrs,” the Facebook post said.
His lawyer Qu Zhenhong confirmed Gao’s detention to RFA Mandarin on Sunday, but declined to give further details.
“His family has received a notice [of detention], but it’s inconvenient for me to say anything more because the case is still under investigation,” Qu said.
‘Miss Mao’
U.K.-based writer Ma Jian said he had heard of Gao’s detention in a text message from his brother Gao Qiang, who lives in New York.
“According to the detention notice, he has been detained for crimes against the reputation of heroes and martyrs,” Ma said in an open letter about Gao’s detention, a copy of which was shared with RFA Mandarin.
The letter cited several sculptures from several years back including the “Miss Mao” series, depicting the late chairman with breasts, and “Mao Kneels in Repentance,” which are believed to have sparked the charges.
Signed by Ma and several other creative artists, the letter called on the Chinese government to release Gao and to repeal the legislation banning “insults” to revolutionary heroes, because it infringes on the freedom of speech guaranteed — on paper, at least — in China’s constitution.
It likened Gao’s detention to the political witch-hunts of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, in which the Gao brothers lost their father.
“Today, the Sanhe police department seems to see Gao Zhen’s artistic works as evidence of crime, repeating the persecution of the Cultural Revolution,” the letter said, saying that controls on Chinese artists continue to tighten under Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.
About to depart for New York
Thailand-based fellow artist Du Yinghong said Gao’s detention came as he and his family prepared to board a flight to New York, where his son was due to start school.
“We’ve booked a flight to Tokyo, and then back to New York, because our son is about to start school,” Gao says in an Aug. 26 voice note to Du, a recording of which was shared with RFA Mandarin. “I hope I’ll get a chance to organize a trip [to visit you] next year, when we can discuss art-related matters.”
Repeated calls to the Sanhe Detention Center rang unanswered on Sunday.
The other Gao Brother — Gao Qiang — responded to written questions from RFA only with the message: “Thank you for your attention.”
A person close to the case told RFA Mandarin that the detention notice included the phrase “infringing the reputation of heroes and martyrs.” It is likely that the charge relates to sculptures of late supreme leader Mao Zedong, including one of Mao “kneeling and repenting,” they said.
If the authorities can’t make that stick retroactively, they may seek evidence to support other charges typically used to target critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, including “subversion” and “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” the person said.
Raid on warehouse
Gao Zhen’s detention came alongside a police raid on his warehouse, apartment and studio in Sanhe’s Best Jingu Industrial Park, according to Ma Jian. Previous attempts by police to enter the premises in 2023 were unsuccessful as Gao Zhen was in New York for the whole of last year.
In 2011, as the authorities released artist and social critic Ai Weiwei from 80 days’ detention over alleged tax evasion, officials raided the 798 Art Village in Beijing in reaction to a satirical sculpture the brothers made of Mao as a woman.
The polished stainless steel sculpture titled “Miss Mao trying to poise herself at the top of Lenin’s head,” portrays the aging leader with signature receding hairline and facial mole, sporting a large pair of naked breasts. The Miss Mao element sits atop a large and grotesque head of Lenin, balancing with a tightrope walking pole.
A super-sized version of the sculpture was shown at the Vancouver Biennale festival in 2010, and was widely seen as a dissident work, satirizing orthodox communism and the official Chinese view of history.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
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