In China, One Step Ahead of the Censors
2009-10-21 By JIMMY WANG
BEIJING - It’s not the kind of sculpture of Chairman Mao you typically see in China.
He’s on his knees as a supplicant, confessing; his body language and facial expression indicate deep remorse. What’s more, the head of this life-size bronze statue, titled “Mao’s Guilt” and created by the artist brothers Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang, separates from the body - by design.
Exhibitions by the Gao brothers, whose work the authorities find politically challenging, have been shut down in the past, and their studio has been raided. So they keep the head of Mao hidden in a separate location - reuniting it with its body only on special occasions to show friends and colleagues.
“It’s something I hope all Chinese people will one day be able to accept and understand,” Gao Zhen, 53, said of the work. “We wanted to portray him as a human being, a regular person confessing for the wrongs he’s committed.”
On September 3 the head came out for a Gao brothers “party” - the code name for one of the invitation-only exhibitions they hold several times a year. The location of the exhibition was not disclosed until several hours beforehand.
Removable heads and underground exhibitions are just two of the guerrilla tactics the Gao brothers have employed, often with the help of Melanie Ouyang, their broker, to enable fans and friends to view their work. The Gaos are part of a generation of avant-garde Chinese artists who are pushing the boundaries of artistic expression.
In the increasingly open Chinese art world, nudity is commonplace where it used to be forbidden, and art parodying the Cultural Revolution has become so ubiquitous that it is passe. Still, the Gaos are a reminder that limits to expression remain: although artists are increasingly free to deal with social and political topics, works that explicitly criticize Chinese leaders or symbols of China are still out of bounds.
“Ash Red,” a 2006 exhibition the Gao brothers openly advertised and held in their studio in the 798 Art District here, was suppressed by authorities. Several men representing the government walked into the gallery and presented a list of works that “needed to be removed,” said Gao Qiang, 47..
The 798 Arts District has a local management office that keeps an eye on art it deems unacceptable and detrimental to the district. “They receive pressure from above,” said Gao Yuewen, 29, a staff member at the Gao studio, who noted that the Gao brothers were “classified differently” from other artists by the authorities, meaning that they were suspect.
The Gao brothers’ most extensive work is both explicit and critical, seeking to recast Chairman Mao as a flawed figure.
For the Gao brothers, Mao holds a personal meaning. During the Cultural Revolution their father was labeled a class enemy and dragged off to a place that was “not a prison, not a police station, but something else,” Gao Zhen said. After 25 days had passed, the family members were told he had committed suicide. They think otherwise: “If someone didn’t like you at that time, they arbitrarily labeled you a class enemy,” Mr. Gao said. “We came to Beijing to petition our father’s death.”
Eventually the family was given the equivalent of about $290 in compensation. “That was a very painful period of our life,” Mr. Gao continued. “We were six brothers and a single mother; we didn’t have a penny.”
Kai Heinze, 33, director of the Faurschou Gallery in the 798 district, said, “The Gao brothers’ work on Mao is provocative for many mainland Chinese. Their work sets off a trigger, challenging people here to understand and tolerate a view of modern Chinese history that admits shortcoming.”
SHIHO FUKADA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES / Gao Zhen, left, and Gao Qiang, brothers and artists in Beijing, with
their controversial, detachable sculpture, "Mao’s Guilt."
