The exploitation of the poor during the early 20th century is the theme of a new exhibition at Shanghai Art Museum, which focuses on belabored peasants paying rent to an unscrupulous landlord.

The 100-plus clay sculptures were made by teachers and students of Sichuan Fine Arts Academy in the 60s.

Ten years later a set of replicas were made using lighter and longer-lasting copperized glass.

"This work remains a modern classic in China's art history," said museum director Li Lei before the show opened to the public last weekend.

Wang Guanyi was one of the teachers who created the project together with his students.

"We have long admired classical sculptures so we wanted to create our own masterpiece," he said.

Chinese artists working several decades ago were supposed to have a close relationship with their mass audiences but Wang was upset to find that most rural workers and farmers did not understand his work, or even the medium he was using.

"They didn't understand it at all. They thought the plaster sculptures were piles of snow," he said.

Wang and his colleagues originally got to show their work at a museum built from the house of a former landlord farmer and tyrant.

"Authentic appliances and furniture were exhibited in the museum, and we were invited to make the scene more vivid by adding sculptures of peasants," he said.

"We did this for the local people, so that the suffering they endured in bygone years would not be forgotten. We learned many stories about what went on back in the old days, and we were determined to present our art in a way that would make sense to these people."

To make the sculptures more lifelike and familiar, glass eyes were added.

"This is similar to how they used to make sculptures of the Buddha long ago," said Wang, adding that such touches won high praise from local people.

It also brought back some painful memories, which for some was part of a long-overdue healing process. Some people cried and others tried to beat the plaster replica of the landlord with sticks upon seeing it for the first time.

Yet the work was a huge success after its debut in 1965, and was soon included in a national art exhibition. Many copies subsequently appeared in other Chinese towns and cities.

"Group sculptures like this mark the climax of realistic sculpture art in China," said Feng Bin, director of the Sichuan Fine Arts Academy Museum.

"The sculptures are in a real-life setting yet they stand in the middle of audiences, provoking lots of interaction."

When the sculptures were released in the 60s they caught the eye of German artists and provoked debate on the ultimate purpose of art, Feng said, as people questioned whether art was supposed to serve its own end, artists or the masses.

The show will move to Germany later this year to continue its run at the Frankfurt Book Fair, which is featuring China as its country of the year for 2009.

June 11, 9 am-4:30 pm

Shanghai Art Museum, 325 Nanjing Road W.

南京西路325号，上海美术馆

Tel: 6327-2829

Tickets: 20 yuan

(China Daily May 20, 2009)