Last month, PEN joined more than forty other human rights organisations to condemn the legal threats and harassment directed at Badiucao, an award-winning Chinese-Australian artist and political cartoonist. 

Born in Shanghai, Badiucao has held exhibitions in the USA, Europe and Australia. Described as the Chinese Banksy, he remained anonymous for years to avoid persecution, but in 2019 he revealed his face publicly, claiming that the Chinese authorities had already identified him. In March, Badiucao and Emmy-nominated journalist Melissa Chan published You Must Take Part in Revolution, a dystopian graphic novel set in 2035, in which the USA and China are at war, America is a proto-fascist state and Taiwan has been divided in two. As the conflict escalates, three idealistic youths, who met in Hong Kong, try to navigate a techno-authoritarian landscape. 

Both Badiucao and Chan have been intimidated and censored by the Chinese authorities for their work. Badiucao moved to Australia in 2009 and later became an Australian citizen, giving up his Chinese passport. Chan, a Chinese-American, was expelled from China in 2012 after working as a correspondent for Al Jazeera at its Beijing bureau. 

Badiucao was one of more than a dozen artists featured in a three-minute video compilation put together by Milan-based digital gallery Art Innovation for the Art Basel fair in Hong Kong at the end of March. The video was displayed on billboards around the city. Badiucao’s contribution was a four-second clip entitled ‘Here and Now’, in which he silently mouths the words ‘you must take part in revolution’, the title of his graphic novel and a Mao Zedong quote. It was due to be broadcast hourly between 28 March and 3 April.

On 1 April, Badiucao contacted several media organisations and informed them that he would be publishing a statement later that evening. The statement was intended to give context to his video artwork and express support for free speech. When journalists contacted Art Innovation for comment, the gallery emailed Badiucao warning him not to publish his statement. They told him that legal action would ‘definitely’ follow if content ‘against the Chinese government is published’. The gallery responded to media enquiries saying that the video ‘had nothing to do with political messages’.

Badiucao went on to publish his statement on social media. In it, he wrote: ‘This art action underscores the absurdity of Hong Kong’s current civil liberties and legal environment. And it would remind everyone that art is dead when it offers no meaning.’ The exhibition was removed from billboards on the morning of 2 April, despite having been scheduled to be displayed until the following day.

In a second email to Badiucao, Art Innovation demanded that he immediately remove all posts relating to the exhibition from his social media accounts and claimed that failure to comply could ‘result in further legal consequences’. They said their lawyers were already working to ‘initiate appropriate legal action’ against him.

On 3 April, Art Innovation accused Badiucao of providing them with false information and violating his contract by submitting political content. In a social media post, Art Innovation wrote: ‘This person deceived us by providing false information about both his identity and the nature of the work despite knowing that political content is prohibited in our exhibition and he even signed the contract.’ Badiucao has said he submitted the artwork under the pseudonym Andy Chou because the video clip was to be shown in Hong Kong, where the authorities had previously shut down an exhibition of his work. He said he never concealed his identity from the gallery and that Art Innovation knew that he was behind the artwork.

Badiucao regularly shares his art with his hundred thousand-plus followers on social media, so Art Innovation would have been aware of the political nature of his work. In 2022, Art Innovation invited him to collaborate on a billboard display at the Art Basel fair in Miami. Badiucao contributed a satirical image of Chinese president Xi Jinping.

The statement signed by PEN and other organisations states: 

We are appalled at the behaviour of this Italian gallery, which claims to ‘love everything that is outside the rules’ and ‘love the freedom of artists’ and yet harasses and tries to silence an artist that stands for exactly those principles. Badiucao must be applauded for his efforts to creatively challenge censorship and authoritarianism in such a repressive regime. Art Innovation should immediately withdraw their legal threats, issue a public apology to Badiucao, and refrain from further harassment of the artist. 

Update: On 27 March, a court in Dar El Beida, near Algiers, sentenced eighty-year-old French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal (LR, Feb) to five years in prison and a fine of 500,000 Algerian dinars (£2,900) after he was convicted of ‘undermining national unity’, ‘insulting an official body’ and other offences. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has called for Sansal to be released.