USC Pacific Asia Museum


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Pasadena, California 91101
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USC Pacific Asia Museum

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EXHIBITION

 

THE RENT COLLECTION COURTYARD: Fifty YearsRent Collection

The Changing Exhibition Galleries: South Gallery
September 26, 2014 through February 22, 2015

2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the revolutionary landmark Chinese installation work, The Rent Collection Courtyard. In 1965, a group of sculptors from the Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts created 114 life-size clay figures depicting starving peasant farmers bringing their rent to a tyrannical feudal landlord's residence, a trenchant Communist critique of practices of serfdom and servitude in imperial China. After the groundbreaking installation at a landlord's former residence in China, the figures were reproduced in a unique maquette (scale model) which belongs to USC Pacific Asia Museum. The Rent Collection Courtyard: Fifty Years will recreate the original installation paired with a critical essay on the works and their legacy in setting the stage for later waves of Chinese contemporary art.

Image from the 1965 installation in the courtyard of Liu Wencai's residence in Dayi County, China.

Click here to view the full exhibition brochure.