{"id":1904,"date":"2013-06-25T06:30:59","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T13:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/compositesandarchitecture.com\/?p=1904"},"modified":"2013-06-25T11:38:54","modified_gmt":"2013-06-25T18:38:54","slug":"captured-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kreysler.zaab.org\/?p=1904","title":{"rendered":"Captured Humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rent Collection Courtyard was a product of the Cultural Revolution in China.\u00a0 Commissioned in 1965, it was originally comprised of 114 ceramic sculptures created by a collective of 18 students and teachers of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute.\u00a0 Depicting the oppression of peasants by a wealthy landowner, Liu Wen-Tsai, the massive work was designed to be exhibited in the courtyard of Liu\u2019s former mansion.\u00a0 It was considered an important and powerful work, and was taken to be exhibited in Beijing in an augmented form, enlarged to 119 figures.\u00a0 The work was divided in six sections: Bringing the Rent<\/strong>,\u00a0Examining the Rent<\/strong>,\u00a0Measuring the Grain<\/strong>,\u00a0Reckoning the Accounts<\/strong>,\u00a0Forcing the Payment<\/strong>, and\u00a0Revolt.<\/strong>\u00a0 The final section received considerable augmentation for the Beijing version, with peasants carrying Maoist signs.<\/p>\n

During the 70\u2019s, the original sculptures were copied in fiberglass by the collective, so they could be toured throughout China for purposes of political education.\u00a0 Although a partial re-creation was shown in Venice in 1999, the originals (or rather, their copper-plated fiberglass casts) were not seen in the West until 2009.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

The photos here are from the 2010 exhibition of the original copper-plated fiberglass version, at the 8th Gwangju Biennale in Gwangju Metropolitan City, South Korea, which included only 101 of the figures.\u00a0 Examination of these photos suggests that the sixth section, Revolt, was eliminated from this 2010 show.<\/p>\n

from Designboom.com:<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1965, a group of students and teachers at the\u00a0Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing\u00a0were commissioned by the\u00a0provincial government of Sichuan, China, to create a series of 103 life-sized social realist sculptures depicting the\u00a0exploitation of the peasant farmers at the hands of a wealthy landowner, Liu Wen-Tsai.\u00a0The sculptures were to be installed in the courtyard of Liu’s former manor house, which was converted into a museum\u00a0of class struggle following the creation of the People’s Republic Of China.<\/em><\/p>\n

The ‘Rent Collection Courtyard’\u00a0was born from the socialist movement of making realistic sculptures to educate\u00a0the illiterate and\u00a0is a series of emotive statues that fight, beg and plead as collectors come for the rent they cannot pay.\u00a0Originally rendered in humble materials such as wood, clay, and straw, the sculptures are re-made in fiberglass by Zhao Shutong, Wang Guanyi and the Rent Collection Courtyard Collective, produced from 1974 to 1978,\u00a0so that it could be toured all over China.<\/em><\/p>\n

images via designboom.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\t\t\t