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Provocative Chinese art in Missouri

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“Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin’s Head”

The two Chinese artists known as the Gao Brothers have often run afoul of the censors. It seems the authorities just don’t appreciate the brothers’ irreverent portrayals of major figures and events in Chinese history. But a new exhibition of the Gao Brothers’ art should have no problem with the censors. That’s because it’s at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri. It’s the Gao Brothers’ first solo museum show in the US. Reporter Sylvia Maria Gross of station KCUR shows us around.
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LISA MULLINS: The two Chinese artists known as the Gao Brothers have sometimes run afoul of authorities. It seems those in charge in China just don’t appreciate the brothers’ irreverent portrayals of major figures and events in Chinese history. But a new exhibition of the Gao Brothers’ art should have no problem at all with the censors. That’s because it’s at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri. Reporter Sylvia Maria Gross of station KCUR shows us around.

SYLVIA MARIA GROSS:  A few weeks ago, Kansas Citians got their first glimpse of the exhibit when a 20-foot stainless steel statue of Lenin’s head went up outside the Kemper museum. Balancing on top of the famous bearded cranium is a small Mao Zedong, naked, and with breasts. Barbara O’Brien is the museum’s curator.

BARBARA O’BRIEN:  Every car that drove by the people kind of – you could see them rubber-necking and trying to see what was happening. People were honking their horns, people were yelling the most marvelous supportive things like, “Oh, look at big shiny!”

GROSS: But what looks fun and bold to Americans, is politically potent in China. Brothers Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang, who make all their work together, have had pieces censored and even confiscated by the government. O’Brien says getting these massive sculptures and paintings out of China was a delicate process.

O’BRIEN: Everyone all the way along wanted to be protected in terms of their relationship with the government.

GROSS: Looking around the exhibit, irreverent images of Mao are everywhere. Over there, six life-size Maos aim rifles at a statue of Jesus. One Mao turns away. And over here is what the Gaos call Miss Mao. A giant, shiny bust with breasts, a braid and a Pinocchio’s nose. The Gaos think a US audience might have a more genuine emotional response to their work than they usually receive in China. Brian McQuain viewing the exhibit on its opening weekend, looks at a realistic statue of Mao, on his knees.

BRIAN MCQUAIN: It’s touching in a way that they show him that he’s just asking forgiveness in the most vulnerable way, on your knees, and just grasping his heart. It portrays someone in a way that they necessarily wouldn’t want to be portrayed.

GROSS: But some people think it’s the context in China that makes the work interesting. Like another visitor Ellen Vessels.

ELLEN VESSELS: In America, people would say, oh that’s very stereotypical, or contrived, or they’re trying too hard to be political, but because it’s banned in China it’s like, oh it’s very brave that they put such a political piece of work out there.

GROSS: For the Gaos, though, politics in personal. Gao Zhen, the older of the two brothers, says through a translator that their obsession with Mao goes back to a childhood trauma.

SPEAKING CHINESE

GAO ZHEN: 1968 was a very specific time during the Cultural Revolution. There was a lot of cleaning out of people. Our father was taken to jail. And he was just a normal factory worker. And to this day, we still do not know if he actually committed suicide, which the officials told us, or if he was killed in jail.

GROSS: A large photo shows the Gaos’ father as a young man, and their mother as the older woman she became, floating against a desolate sky. Nearby is that kneeling statue, which is called Mao’s Guilt.

SPEAKING CHINESE

GAO ZHEN: There’s no one that has influenced the Chinese people more than Mao. For us, we lost our father, so instead of making or keeping Mao as this godly image, we wanted to create him into a real person, in order to change history.

GROSS: Since the Gaos began creating their provocative work in the 1980s, China has changed. And the art scene has flourished. But curator Arthur Hwang says most contemporary art in China has become very commercial.

ARTHUR HWANG: Whereas for the Gao Brothers, they said more than 20 years ago in an essay that their art is not about beauty. That it’s about life. And they’ve really cleaved to this idea throughout their career. It’s about humanity, it’s about injustice. It’s about truth and distortion of truth.

GROSS: Hwang says the Gaos are respected in the Beijing art world for their integrity, but few in China actually get to see their work. And if they do, it’s in reproductions. The Gao Brothers say they hope someday their pieces will be viewed in China as art rather than simply provocation. For the World, I’m Sylvia Maria Gross, in Kansas City.

MULLINS:  The Gao Brothers exhibit runs at the Kemper Museum in Kansas City through December. Check out that statue of Lenin’s head with a naked Mao on top. It’s right there on our website, TheWorld.org.

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