A Christian artist known for his satirical sculptures of Mao Zedong, including one titled 'The Execution of Christ', has been detained in China on charges of "insulting revolutionary heroes", according to his brother and artistic partner.
In a Facebook post, Gao Qiang said that his brother, Gao Zhen, had been visiting family in the Hubei province of China when around 30 police officers stormed the pair's art studio and took him away, along with several of their artworks. Zhen had left China to live in the USA two years ago. Chinese authorities have not responded to the allegations.
The Gao Brothers, as Qiang and Zhen are known, have been designing provocative sculptures of Mao, who founded the People's Republic of China and served as its Chairman from 1949 until his death in 1976, for decades.
One of the works for which the Brothers gained prominence, 'The Execution of Christ', shows seven bronze sculptures of the former leader pointing bayonets at Jesus. Gao Zhen has previously spoken about how growing up in the political violence that characterised China at times during the mid-to-late 20th century led him towards a personal Christian faith.
A law banning any insult or slander of "heroes and martyrs" of China was signed into the country's criminal code in 2023 and carries a punishment of up to three years' imprisonment.
During the period of the 1960s and 1970s in China, known as the Cultural Revolution, the brothers' father was labelled a class enemy and taken to a place that was "not a prison, not a police station, but something else", where he died, Gao Zhen told the New York Times in 2009.
Gao Quiang says he has been worried about his brother's health since the arrest is alleged to have happened, in late August. "He is nearly 70 years old and naturally prone to melancholy. I am very concerned about his physical and mental health", he told CNN.
