Dissident artist Gao Zhen arrested on visit to China over Mao sculptures

Dissident Chinese artist Gao Zhen, internationally known for his provocative sculptures of Mao Zedong, was arrested during his visit to China from the US, his brother said.

Gao Zhen, 68, was arrested on 26 August during a raid by dozens of police officers on suspicion of slandering China’s heroes and martyrs, his brother Gao Qiang, 62, said. The offence is punishable by up to three years in prison.

The artist, who moved to the US two years ago, was visiting his family in Hebei province when he was arrested by the Chinese police, his brother said in a Facebook post.

He said about 30 police officers raided his brother’s art studio last week in Yanjiao, a town in Sanhe City, an hour away from Beijing, and confiscated some of the artwork and his mobile phone before taking him in custody.

The artwork taken away by the police was created more than 10 years ago and “reassessed Mao’s Cultural Revolution”, he said. Chinese authorities have not responded to the allegations by Qiang, BBC reported.

Mao is the revered founder of the People’s Republic of China who launched the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s.

The sculptures included “Mao’s Guilt”, a statue showing Mao with his hand on his heart, “The Execution of Christ”, showing Mao’s firing squad taking aim at Jesus, and “Miss Mao”, a collection of statues of Mao with large breasts and a Pinocchio-like nose.

The Sanhe City public security bureau was notified about the arrest, but has not issued a statement yet.

Before moving to the US, the brothers had a fraught history with the Chinese authorities over their politically sensitive artwork. They had their exhibitions shut down and their studios were also raided during their stay but avoided facing serious actions.

To avoid getting into trouble, they had invite-only exhibitions with location revealed only through word of mouth or coded text messages just hours before the events.

Often called Chairman Mao, the founder of Communist China in 1949 led the country through the Cultural Revolution, a tumultuous period in the 1960s and 1970s, during which the economy stagnated, schools were closed, and some historians estimate that as many as 1.5 million people died and millions more were persecuted in the political upheaval.

Mao’s regime was accused of severe human rights abuses, including the suppression of political dissent, and the use of forced labour camps. Though Mao remains a divisive figure, his image adorns China’s banknotes and his embalmed body attracts hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors each day in Beijing.

The father of the Gao brothers during that period was labelled as a “class enemy” and taken to a place that was “not a prison, not a police station, but something else”, where he died, Zhen said.

In 2021, China made slandering of heroes and martyrs a criminal offence, as part of a newly amended criminal code. It was made punishable with three years’ imprisonment.