A wonderfully talented duo that are actual brothers in real life born in Jinan, Shandong, China. This area is in the north east part of China. The older brother is Zhen born in 1956. The younger brother is named Qiang, who was born in 1962. The duo has been working on collaborative works since 1985. Employing a wide variety of mediums, they are renown for their depictions of Mao with breasts. Mao had an important and significant role in the Gao brothers life. Their father was a political dissident and was put in jail when they were young. At the ages of 12 and 6 years old, their father passed away whilst in a Chinese jail.
Most famous for their photography.
For their collegiate education Zhen attended the Shandong Academy of Fine Arts. Qiang graduated from Qufu Normal University.
First exhibition was a large work that was made to replicate the sexual organ of a hermaphrodite. Another early work dealt with Tiananmen Square, a large hand with a bloody hole in the center.
The hug is another major theme of the brothers. Some works have people hugging with clothes on and sometimes naked.
Another theme is cramming many naked bodies into a small box. This series of images is called Sense of Space and a work from this series is below.
An example of their hugging performance art here.
In this clip we see the artist duo’s famous Miss Mao dancing atop Lenin’s head, very carefully.
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