A lawyer from Florida has pleaded responsible to bombing a satirical statue of the Communist leaders Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong in Texas in 2022 and trying to bomb the Chinese language Embassy in Washington, DC, in September 2023.
In accordance with an announcement by the US Lawyer’s Workplace for the District of Columbia, in early November 2022 Christopher Rodriguez of Panama Metropolis, Florida, drove round 850 miles to San Antonio, Texas, in a rental automotive. Within the early hours of seven November, he climbed over a fence to realize entry to a courtyard the place Miss Mao Making an attempt to Poise Herself on the High of Lenin’s Head (2009)—a 21ft-tall, 4,400lb chromed statue by the Chinese language artist duo the Gao Brothers (Gao Qiang and Gao Zhen)—had been put in. He set two canisters of explosives on the base of the sculpture and shot them with a rifle, inflicting a big explosion that considerably broken the sculpture.
Lower than a yr later, Rodriguez drove round 930 miles from his hometown to northern Virginia with a rifle and 15lbs of explosives. Within the early morning hours of 24 September 2023, he took a taxi to close the Chinese language Embassy in Washington, DC, positioned a bag crammed with explosives close to a rear wall of the constructing and tried to detonate it along with his rifle. He missed 3 times, and the explosives, which did not detonate, have been later recovered by police.
Rodriguez was arrested by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on 4 November 2023 in Louisiana and has been held since then. On Friday (2 August), he pleaded responsible to damaging property occupied by a overseas authorities, explosive supplies—malicious injury to federal property and receipt or possession of an unregistered firearm (harmful machine).
One of many Gao Brothers’ best-known works, Miss Mao debuted on the 2009 Vancouver Biennale. Within the piece, the Chinese language dissident artists depicted a diminutive, feminised rendering of the Chinese language Communist chief Mao Zedong balancing atop an enormous portrait bust of the Soviet chief Vladimir Lenin. In accordance with an academic textual content about their work produced for the Vancouver Biennale, the Gao Brothers have been “blacklisted in China” because of the important and satirical content material of their work, which “has by no means been publicly displayed in China”.
Miss Mao was delivered to central San Antonio by the native real-estate developer and artwork collector James Lifshutz, who additionally owns the Blue Star Arts Complicated, one of many metropolis’s contemporary-art hubs. The sculpture was unveiled lower than a month after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.
“There at present appears to be a balancing act occurring amid this struggle of aggression, what China’s stance on it’s, what function they play or don’t play,” Lifshutz instructed the San Antonio Report on the time. “Poignantly, there appears to be a brand new or completely different which means than the artists initially had.” He added: “It’s monumental and glossy, and I prefer it.”
Regardless of its pretty overt tone of satire and critique, on the time of its unveiling some individuals misinterpreted Miss Mao as being pro-communist.
In an e mail to the San Antonio Report on the time of the work’s Texan debut, the Gao Brothers stated: “We hope that this sculpture we created greater than ten years in the past will present a visible context throughout historical past and actuality for individuals to consider Putin’s ongoing struggle of aggression in opposition to Ukraine. It’s our pleasure and honour to show our work within the nice metropolis of San Antonio, and we hope freedom-loving Texas individuals will benefit from the sculpture.”
The duo apparently didn’t anticipate the response—and certain misinterpretation—of 1 freedom-loving Florida individual.
