Washington D.C. – Religion Unplugged, July 16, 2026
A 70-year-old artist is facing another day apart from his family and without necessary medical care after almost two years in a Chinese prison, his friends and advocates said.
Gao Zhen, a Christian and part of the famous artistic duo called the Gao brothers, was detained in mid-2024 for “slandering heroes and martyrs,” according to the International Federation for Human Rights. His friends and advocates say he was really detained for his sculptures that critique the country’s authoritarianism, censorship and the Chinese government’s darker chapters of history.
Gao Zhen, along with his younger brother, Gao Qiang, created work that spanned artistic mediums, but are best known for their contemporary bronze and chrome sculptures and their public performance art.
“Some of their work can be tongue-in-cheek and critical, especially when they are talking about political leaders who suppress freedom of speech and education,” Joyce Yu-Jean Lee, a fellow artist and friend of the brothers, told Religion Unplugged.
The brothers are Christians and their faith and political views mingle in several works, including a life-size sculpture called “The Execution of Christ,” depicting a group of figures that look like China’s former dictator Mao Zedong pointing their guns at Jesus, Lee said.
Another sculpture shows Zedong kneeling, with his hand over his heart, asking for forgiveness for his misdeeds. Zedong founded the People’s Republic of China and was the architect of the Great Leap Forward, which caused widespread famine and death of an estimated 30 million people.
