The Gao Brothers, Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang, are a renowned pair of artist brothers in China, the authors and editors of several published works, including “One Day In Beijing”, “The State Of China Avant-Garde” and “The Report Of Art Environment”. They have been collaborating on installation, performance, photography works and writing to explore issues of contemporary life and society since the mid 1980s.

Gao Brothers carried out their first group hug performance, "The Utopia Of Hugging For Twenty Minutes" on September 10, 2000 by inviting one hundred and fifty volunteers, who were previously strangers to each other, to take part in the event. They asked all participants to choose a person at random for a hug of fifteen minutes duration. Afterwards, all participants huddled together for an additional five minutes.

The Gao Brothers are proposing an ongoing series of World Hug Day events around the globe via the internet, and so far have got enormous feedback and support.

Since 2000, Gao Brothers have hugged hundreds of strangers and organised group hugging performances with strangers at many public locations in different ways and have taken a lot of interesting photographs.

For more information about the Gao Brothers including current & recent exhibitions, projects, theoretical texts and press reviews visit their websites at:

www.gaobrothers.net (English)

www.gaobrothers.com (Chinese & English)

All enquiries regarding the Gao Brothers' hug performances please email to:

mail@gaobrothers.net

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