Between 2005 and 2009, two Chinese artist brothers, Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang, produced a series of sculptures depicting Mao Zedong. In one, Mao appears kneeling and repentant. In another, seven Maos aim their rifles at the figure of Christ. A third series represents him with breasts. These are satirical, irreverent works, recognisable within a long tradition: that of art which mocks monuments.

In August 2024, Gao Zhen was detained in Hebei while visiting his family. He is sixty-nine years of age and holds permanent residency in the United States. In November of that year, the police seized one hundred and eighteen works from his studio. In June 2025, the prosecution formally charged him with insulting and defaming the honour of heroes and martyrs, an offence codified in Article 299-1 of the Chinese Criminal Code. His trial, held behind closed doors, concluded on 30 March of this year. As I write this, he remains in detention, awaiting sentencing.

And now, the date that distinguishes this case from yet another report on censorship: the article under which he is charged came into force on 1 March 2021; the sculptures date from between 2005 and 2009. When they were created, that offence did not exist.

This is neither my own interpretation nor a partisan denunciation. In April of this year, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights stated as much: the case raises concerns regarding the retroactive application of criminal law and the use of criminal sanctions to penalise artistic expression, thereby undermining the principle of legality. It further added that his health is reportedly deteriorating in detention, called for his immediate and unconditional release, and demanded the lifting of the exit ban imposed upon his family.

The argument requires no appeal to any imported principle. The Chinese Criminal Code itself establishes, in Article 12, that if an act was not an offence under the laws in force at the time of its commission, those laws shall apply. Non-retroactivity is not a requirement imposed upon China by the West from the outside; it is inscribed within its own statutes. This is why the case is of interest beyond the sympathy the artist may evoke: it necessitates a discussion not on political systems, but on internal coherence.

I do not claim expertise in Chinese criminal law, nor shall I feign it. I merely observe what the sources state: the date of the works, the date of the statute, and what the statute establishes regarding its own temporal application.

When a State prosecutes an individual for a work created twelve years before the offence existed, it does not assert that the work is different from what it was. The sculpture is the same object that left the studio in 2009: the same material, the same form, the same satirical gesture. What has changed does not lie within the work. It lies in the classification applied to it.

I have long maintained, in my work on recognition, that the status a work receives is mutable, whereas that which production has left within it is not. A piece may transition from non-art to art, from canon to oblivion, from authentic to counterfeit, without any structural change. I typically provide benign examples: the archive discovered late, the rehabilitated painter, the reattributed work. This case represents the dark version of the same mechanism. Status may also shift downwards, it may do so retroactively, and it may culminate in a prison cell.

To treat this solely as a matter of freedom of expression, although it is that as well, overlooks a prior question: whether the past can be rewritten. An act occurring in 2009 took place under specific conditions, and among those conditions was what was or was not punishable at that time. If one can return and alter that condition, then no one has ever truly completed anything. Everything done remains subject to subsequent legislation. It is a legal problem, certainly, but it is also a problem concerning the relationship between what occurs and the time in which it occurs.

The penal provision has been used previously against other forms of expression. A blogger was sentenced in 2021 to eight months' imprisonment for posts regarding soldiers killed at the border; a comedian prompted a multi-million administrative penalty for his company in 2023 due to a joke about the military. I have not, however, found another visual artist criminally prosecuted under that same article, which renders this case something approaching a precedent.

There has been a response, albeit discreet. One hundred and eighty-one Chinese cultural figures—filmmakers, writers, artists—signed a petition requesting his release, which, given where they are signing from, is no minor gesture. Several international organisations for artistic freedom have requested the same since 2024, and in May of this year a joint statement formulated it with a phrase that encapsulates the matter: art is not a crime, but it is a powerful means of questioning tyranny.

There is no reassuring conclusion to provide here, and to fabricate one would be indecent. There is a sixty-nine-year-old man detained for nearly two years for sculptures he created when creating them was legal, awaiting a sentence to be delivered following a trial to which no member of his family could bear witness. I can offer little more than precision regarding where the problem lies, and it lies in the dates. The works are from 2005 to 2009. The offence is from 2021. And the very law that defines it states that this should not matter to his detriment.

On open conversation

This text intersects with my ongoing research: the distinction between what a work is and the status attributed to it, which may change indefinitely without any alteration to the piece itself. The usual examples are benign—the reattributed work, the archive discovered late—and this case illustrates the inverse version of the same mechanism. I claim no competence in Chinese criminal law; I confine myself to what has been documented by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the organisations monitoring the case. Should anyone wish to intervene from the perspectives of criminal law, human rights, sinology, or artistic freedom, this notebook remains open.

Sources

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Spokesperson's statement, Geneva, 15 April 2026 (Gao Zhen case: retroactive application of criminal law, criminal sanctions for artistic expression, state of health and travel ban on his family).

Human Rights Watch, Chinese Human Rights Defenders and Artists at Risk Connection: documentation regarding the detention (26 August 2024), the formal indictment (20 June 2025) and the seizure of 118 works (17 November 2024).

Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China, Article 299-1, incorporated by Amendment XI (adopted 26 December 2020; in force 1 March 2021); Article 12, regarding the application of law over time.

AFP / Hong Kong Free Press, 31 March 2026: closed-door trial concluded 30 March 2026, with no verdict announced.

The Art Newspaper and NPR: description and dating of the works (Miss Mao, The Execution of Christ, Mao’s Guilt), created between 2005 and 2009.

Joint statement by OMCT and FIDH and other organisations, 12 May 2026. Petition signed by 181 Chinese cultural figures.

Cortés García, Adolfo, and Juan A. Esteban Ruiz. Recognition and Surplus. Zenodo, 2026. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21630455