Rent Collection Courtyard

The Rent Collection Courtyard (Chinese: 收租院; pinyin: shōuzū yuàn) is a clay collection of 114 life-sized sculptures located in the courtyard of the former home of rural landlord Liu Wencai in Dayi County, Sichuan, created by Ye Yushan and a team of sculptors from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 1965. It is a famous work of Socialist Realist sculpture showing an evil landlord collecting rent from poor peasants.^[1] Widely reproduced in various other media, including posters, comic strips, and film, Rent Collection Courtyard was promoted as an example of revolutionary realism and was a key precursor to the artistic movements of the Cultural Revolution.^[2]: 326 Copies were made and put on display in Beijing after modification to make them more powerful as works of propaganda.^[3]

In the 1999 Venice Biennale, the contemporary Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang referenced the sculpture in the performance piece Venice's Rent Collection Courtyard in which he hired artisans to recreate the sculpture.^{[4][5][2]: 326} The original team later sued the artists who created this exhibit piece.^[6]

1. ^ Sullivan, Michael (2008). The Arts of China (5 ed.). pp. 307–308. ISBN 978-0-520-25569-2.
2. ^ ^{a b} Li, Jie (2016). "Museums and Memorials of the Mao Era: A Survey and Notes for Future Curators". In Li, Jie; Zhang, Enhua (eds.). Red Legacies in China: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist Revolution. Harvard Contemporary China Series. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center. ISBN 978-0-674-73718-1.
3. ^ Liang, Ellen (1988). The Winking Owl. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 62. ISBN 0-520-06097-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
4. ^ "Who Owns the People's Art?, Art in America". Archived from the original on 2008-07-01. Retrieved 2010-03-10.
5. ^ "Morning Sun | Stages of History | Rent Collection Courtyard". www.morningsun.org. Archived from the original on 2011-12-18. Retrieved 2012-01-31.
6. ^ Kraus, Richard (2012). The Cultural Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. pp. 113–114.

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