[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Chrome_bust_of_Russian_Communist_leader_Vladimir_Lenin_in_West_Hollywood_California_LCCN2013631605-e1775246823888.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tArtist Gao Zhen, who was detained in China in 2024 on \u201csuspicion of slandering China\u2019s heroes and martyrs\u201d over a satirical sculpture of Mao Zedong, has been sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison, rights groups say.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThe BBC<\/em> reported yesterday that a court in Hebei province ruled on Tuesday that Gao Zhen\u2019s artwork \u201cinfringes upon the hero\u2019s reputation and harms the public interest.\u201d The 70-year-old artist is known for a dissident oeuvre that targets the Chinese Communist Party. One of his most famous works, produced with his key collaborator and brother Gao Qiang, is a sculpture comprising figures resembling Mao holding Jesus Christ at gunpoint. The work, titled Execution of Christ<\/em> (2009), was cited in the court case against Gao Zhen, along with Mao\u2019s Guilt<\/em> (2009), a life-size replica of the late leader kneeling in contrition, and the monumental Miss Mao<\/em> (2006\u201309), which depicts him with breasts and a Pinocchio-like nose while making a grotesque expression.<\/p>\n \n\tGao was arrested by Chinese authorities at his studio outside Beijing during a visit in 2024. (He had been living in the United States since 2022.) The defamation law he is accused of violating was a new iteration of a 2018 law that has been central to President Xi Jinping\u2019s long-running campaign against criticism of the Communist Party. Around 118 of Gao\u2019s artworks were seized from his studio at the time of his arrest. As Human Rights Watch noted, the contested works were created between 2005 and 2009\u2014before Xi took office in 2013 and well before the laws cited in the case were enacted in 2018 and 2021.<\/p>\n \n\tGao\u2019s trial took place in one day behind closed doors. It received minimal media coverage in China. Amnesty International said in a statement on Tuesday that Gao plans to appeal the conviction.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cNo artist should face criminal punishment for creating work that challenges official narratives or encourages critical reflection on history,\u201d Amnesty International\u2019s China director Sarah Brooks said. \u201cThis trial demonstrates how broadly worded and politically motivated laws are used\u2014and, worse, in this case, used retroactively\u2014to silence artists, activists and other individuals who dare to express views that differ from those of the Chinese government.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/gao-zhen-receives-three-year-prison-sentence-for-slander-1234796095\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Chrome_bust_of_Russian_Communist_leader_Vladimir_Lenin_in_West_Hollywood_California_LCCN2013631605-e1775246823888.jpg?w=1024″] Artist Gao Zhen, who was detained in China in 2024 on \u201csuspicion of slandering China\u2019s heroes and martyrs\u201d over a satirical sculpture of Mao Zedong, has been sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison, rights groups say.\u00a0 The BBC reported yesterday that a court in Hebei province ruled on Tuesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2117037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2117037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2117037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2117037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2117037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}