At the Sanhe People’s Court (Hebei), 70-year-old sculptor Gao Zhen was tried in a hearing that lasted only one day, yesterday March 30. Without public or press. What he is accused of is his works. Having ridiculed the figure of Mao Zedong, not with words, but with forms.
Revealed in particular by the New York Timesand followed by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the affair goes beyond a problem of artistic censorship. It highlights an evolution of the control exercised by the Chinese power.
Born in 1956, Gao Zhen formed the duo “Gao Brothers” with his brother Gao Qiang (64). Their work is part of a family history marked by the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Their father, a worker, was denounced as a “class enemy”, imprisoned, then died in circumstances that remained uncertain. Gao Qiang writes that “Where Mao appears like a father, to us he appears more like an executioner”.
In their sculptures, Mao is no longer just a historical figure. It becomes a transformable and mocked body. At the Vancouver Biennale (2010), the work Miss Mao (2006) presents a transvestite Mao, with a deliberately deformed nose, and bare breasts. In The Execution of Christ (2009), twelve figures of Mao, arranged like apostles, point a supplicant Christ. He no longer becomes the savior of the people but the implacable judge.
Gao Brothers, Miss Maoblue version from 2006.
© Akiba
The trial is based on the law “on the protection of heroes and martyrs”, adopted in 2018 and strengthened in 2021, which provides for up to three years of imprisonment. The works in question predate these texts. This retroactivity of the law is only one of the violations of human rights in China.
The closed session is authorized by the Code of Criminal Procedure in the name of “national security” or “public interest”. In fact, it excludes any independent access to the hearing. Limited to one day, it appears less like a moment of debate than like the culmination of a procedure initiated upstream. In this type of case, judges intervene in a context where the Communist Party retains a determining influence.
According to the New York TimesGao Zhen does not recognize himself guilty and presents himself as a witness to the Cultural Revolution. This position is not upheld by the courts. The artist, who lives in New York, was arrested in August 2024 during a family visit to China. He has been detained in Sanhe since then. His state of health would have deteriorated. Malnutrition, pathology of the lumbar spine, chronic knee and eye disorders are mentioned. His wife and their seven-year-old son, although American citizens, are prevented from leaving Chinese territory.
“We were all hoping for greater openness (…). But China has not truly opened its political system”observes the Chinese-American artist Pei Gu in the columns of New York Times. “Since the Cultural Revolution, it has fallen by a decade every decade. »
