Curating the Cultural Revolution: The Rent Collection Courtyard Then and Now

Curating the Cultural Revolution: The Rent Collection Courtyard Then and Now

Denise Ho - Assistant Professor of History, Yale University

Friday, October 28, 2016 - 12:00pm
Room 218, East Asia Library, SML See map
120 High Street
New Haven, CT 06511

During this year’s fiftieth anniversary of China’s Cultural Revolution, many have invoked the writer Ba Jin’s call for a Cultural Revolution Museum. Why has there been so little commemoration - state and otherwise - of one of the most important periods of China’s twentieth century? This talk explores the history of the Rent Collection Courtyard, an exhibition that was displayed shortly before and during the Cultural Revolution and that became one of the Mao period’s most iconic “model works.” to this day, the Rent Collection Courtyard is on display in China, even though it is presented as art rather than propaganda. Denise Ho, Assistant Professor of History, will examine the practice of exhibiting class in the 1960s, the role of display in the Cultural Revolution, and the legacy of the Rent Collection Courtyard in contemporary China.


Light lunch will be provided.

This talk is in conjunction with the current exhibit in the East Asia Library, From Propaganda Mobilization to Youth Demobilization: Selected Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) Sources in the Yale University Library

Sponsored by the East Asia Library
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China