China put a US-based artist on trial for sculptures he made 15 years ago and the world is just finding out

Gao Zhen, a 69-year-old artist and permanent US resident, recently faced a secretive trial in China on charges of “insulting revolutionary heroes and martyrs.” As detailed by BBC and Human Rights Watch, the charges stem from sculptures he created over 15 years ago. Gao, who relocated to the United States in 2022, was arrested at his Beijing studio in mid-2024 while visiting with his family.

The trial received limited coverage inside China, with some local media describing him as a “so-called ‘artist’ who caters to Western political agendas through pseudo-art that vilifies and insults revered figures.” Gao’s brother and longtime collaborator, Gao Qiang, told the BBC that the trial’s message is unmistakable: “Even if a work was made 15 years ago, it can still be turned into a crime if today’s political climate changes.”

For decades, Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang, known collectively as the Gao brothers, built a global reputation through contemporary artworks that frequently challenged China’s authoritarian past and present. Their work often features Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, whose rule oversaw some of the most traumatic episodes in the country’s modern history.

The prosecution is being called vindictive and legally baseless

Among their most provocative pieces is “The Execution of Christ,” exhibited in 2009, which depicts Jesus Christ at gunpoint surrounded by rifle-wielding figures resembling Mao Zedong. “Mao’s Guilt,” also from 2009, is a life-sized replica of the former leader kneeling in contrition. Their “Miss Mao Series” featured sculptures of him with breasts and a Pinocchio nose. These works, created between 2005 and 2009, have now cost Gao Zhen his freedom.

The charges are particularly troubling because the law under which he is being prosecuted was only introduced in 2021, meaning the artwork in question predates it by over a decade. Debates over the retroactive use of law to punish past conduct have also surfaced elsewhere, including in the US Justice Department’s move to erase Jan. 6 convictions. Human Rights Watch has publicly called on China to drop what it describes as “baseless charges,” stating that the prosecution violates Gao’s fundamental right to freedom of expression. Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, noted that critique of Mao’s legacy, once tolerated, now appears off-limits as President Xi Jinping tightens ideological control.

Mao Zedong remains a complicated figure within China’s state narrative. He founded Communist China in 1949 and presided over a period that included a famine killing tens of millions and the Cultural Revolution, a violent purge of perceived enemies of the state. The Gao brothers’ own father was labeled a class enemy during that period, taken into custody, and later reported to have died by suicide. To challenge Mao’s legacy, in the eyes of the state, is to challenge the legitimacy of the CCP itself.

The space for creative expression in China has contracted significantly since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. In 2023, standup comedian Li Haoshi faced a political firestorm after making a joke about the People’s Liberation Army, resulting in his employer being fined 14.7 million yuan, roughly $2.1 million. Other prominent figures including artist Ai Weiwei and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo have also faced severe repercussions for challenging state narratives.

Gao Zhen’s arrest in mid-2024 was followed by authorities seizing 118 pieces of artwork from his studio on November 17, 2024. His wife and seven-year-old son, a US citizen, have both been barred from leaving the country. There are also significant concerns about Gao’s health: the 69-year-old suffers from chronic lumbar spine disease, arthritis, eye problems, and chronic urticaria. He has met his lawyer in a wheelchair on multiple occasions, has shown signs of malnutrition, and fainted in September 2025. A doctor at the detention center suggested he may have arteriosclerosis, potentially a precursor to a stroke, yet repeated applications for medical bail have been denied.

China-watchers say the case reflects a CCP that is policing its citizens both transnationally and retroactively. Ian Johnson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, described this as “probably the darkest period of time in decades” for freedom of expression under the CCP, surpassing even the crackdown that followed Tiananmen in 1989. Sophie Richardson of the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders noted that authorities are “extending that reach beyond physical borders” through exit bans and pressure on foreign art institutions, a tactic that draws comparisons to government surveillance of activists seen in other contexts as well.

The secrecy surrounding the trial, which was closed to family members, the public, and foreign diplomats, is typically reserved for national security cases. Gao Qiang argued that the closed proceedings reveal the prosecution’s weakness: “If exposed to public view, the legal weakness, political vindictiveness, and symbolic nature of the prosecution would become impossible to hide.” Melbourne-based cartoonist Badiucao, known for his critiques of Beijing, said he no longer feels safe and believes the Chinese government “do not care about international reputation anymore.”

The United Nations human rights office, Human Rights Watch, and 181 artists, writers, activists, and scholars have all called for Gao Zhen’s immediate release. Gao Qiang warned that if his brother’s prosecution goes unanswered, it will send a message “that a state may retroactively redefine the meaning of art and turn satire, reflection, and memory themselves into crimes.”