The People Eat For Free Summary

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The introduction to “The People Eat for Free and the Art of Collective Production in Maoist China” by Christine I. Ho begins with background information on the piece itself along with the standing of Mao and the socialist party during the 1950’s. While detailing this, Ho begins discussing how due to the communist influence over China, the collective nature of it leaked into the world as art as well. As, many works started being created anonymously and through the efforts of many individuals instead of just one. This notion was also true for the piece entitled The People Eat for Free, in which depicted a utopia of optimal communism where everyone helps everyone else and food is readily available for all. The collective nature of this piece was done to further the notion of a collective society in itself along with the intertwinement of government ideology and art. This leads Ho into delving into collective creation and how it was implemented. Early notions of collective production are seen in the nationalism of the Sino-Japanese war. In order to properly create as a collective, there needed to be a shift in the …show more content…

A notion that is furthered by other works of art that fall under the category of “Art at the service of politics” was abundant in early People’s Republic. However many artists found it difficult finding a style that expressed the notions of the collective rather than the individual. This style is something that The People Eat for Free was able to accomplish. Ho furthers this notion by going into detail on the aspects of the artwork and how it displays the collective in ways such as the bird eye view, the spacing, structure, and overall content that makes the world within the art seem like a self-sufficient organism. Then talks about other various renditions of People Eat for Free before the one that we know as such would be

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