MAKING NEW WORLDS LI YUAN-CHI- KETTLES YARD

Artist and Founder of his own Arts Centre Li Yuan-Chi

Little wonder artists adore this new exhibition at Kettles Yard..The work represents the triumph of imagination over the mundane. What is its essence? Creation of a community?. Free unfettered expression? Both of these conjured out of almost nothing by a refugee with scarce knowledge of the Lake District where he founded his now celebrated Centre., Here the collection of artistic effort and intricate experimentation combine. LYC is a paradigm for the way that society could treat the arts and could allow the artist space, light and somewhere to flourish. Making New Worlds is an unusual innovative show. a manifesto of a sometimes beautifully realised Utopia generated from almost nothing.. Most of the work originated in the farmhouse in Cumberland where its dynamic inventive creator spent years in pursuit of a new kind of artistic community, far from his native Land.

Installation at the LYC

There is a history of artists in The Lakes. There was John Ruskin with his own grand house there, and Kurt Schwitters, a maker of grand scale collage “Merzbau” some say the creator of installation art - it involved sculptures in porridge (which went putrid quite quickly)- and the decoration of a barn from found -rubbish . His preserved building (Cambridge’s Anthony Jones was instrumental in its renewal) is now shown at the University of Newcastle. There were more conventional artists, Beatrix Potter created her famous furry characters from the world of nature in the Lakes, and artist. Winifred Nicholson, very much part of the Kettles Yard set, and hugely admired painter was an influential landowner there .Through her aristocratic associations she allowed Li Yuan-Chia to buy the barn for his art centre for £2000. Their relationship, financial and artistic is central to the LYC and its inception.

Cosmic Flares - part of the exuberant space dimension of Li’s perspective

 Li Yuan and Winifred' Nicholson met at one of Li’s London shows  and their artistic friendship spanned the years he spent in the farmhouse and beyond. The art collector and patron Helen Sutherland, writing to Jim Ede, described. Winifred's painting Roman Road (see below). as “A lovely big landscape with a road that goes deep into the past and the future“. It was right by this road ‘where ancient history was visibly present’ that Li was inspired to create and run a contemporary arts organisation like no other. It was one that had a profound impact on the life many artists, as well as leaving an archive and legacy of its activities through which we continue to encounter the work of Li and the LYC today.

Charwei_Tsai-2009-Circle

 Li himself wrote ‘And the gallery tells a story about the past, the present, and the future. To establish a museum is not simply to get everything done in one day. It is not simply a question of how much hard work you put into it. The real question is whether the basic idea is right, where true love lies behind In the last two years I have faced many problems in trying to establish the best possible museum, but will it work?. Will it ever been done? Meanwhile, it invites you to come and look.”

It is easy to see why this exhibition appeals to the artists of Cambridge and the world beyond.. And especially to the Kettle's Yard of today.  As the hugely well written catalogue tells us “Jim Ede strove to transform visitors’ encounters with artworks through hospitality.” A 1971 University of Cambridge student magazine named Kettles Yard as an anti-museum!. Kettle's Yard has kept going and now flourishes like the green bay tree. A very sad comparison with the ruin of LYC. The spirit and intent was there in Li Yuan’s project but the result is tragically different., the outcome sadly neglected..

Winifred. Nicholson was very influential in the choice of the new gallery and indeed the full development of the centre and  Li’s ambition to make a centre and live there.. She writes movingly of her association with the area  “The earth of Cumberland is my earth, way back to the mediaeval, to the Roman times, the Celtic Bronze Age time. I have always lived in Cumberland. - the call of the Curlew is my call, the tremble of the harebell is my tremble. It is  . . my mystery, and the silver gleam when the sun does come out, my pathway. “

 Li writes and echoes this link in the founding of the LYC. in later years,

“Great times have changed, - for the good and the sad - since the summer of 1971, when. W Nicholson.showed me Bankside farmhouse, which she owned. It had not been occupied for two years and it was a sad place, broken and neglected. But she saw its beauty and I saw I must take it and make some good for it right there. “

So much of the. Creativity and the achievements of the LYC firmly anchor in the time it was founded . 1972 was a glowing landmark of a year. The 1960s are often thought of as revolutionary and indeed there were some elements of.that movement within them, but it was 1970.which saw the break  up of the  conventional ; the Beatles, the 1971 Publication of.German Greer’s ground-breaking feminist tract., The Female Eunuch.Creativity and rebellion flourished as in no other time..

 The LYC was the physical manifestation of the idea of conceptual elements of art. It was the Cosmic Museum. With huge ambition. Particularly in its relation to a rather shabby presentation. Art combined with deeply-held beliefs about the value and necessity of hospitality. Photographs of young people crowded around a long table reflect the spirit of. warmth and inclusion Li wanted to extend into creation itself.

 Any account of the LYC Museum and Gallery must include its major publishing operation. And the Imprint LYC Press. 100 catalogues outlining every show at the gallery the Museum. Published Artist Books, Poetry, Yearbooks and a magazine  They went under the same Square format of 14 by 14 centimetres. Designed and printed by Li himself. There is so much astonishing detail and remarkable originality within this Exhibition at Kettle s yard.

 The show will continue and does demand several visits to appreciate and encompass its astonishing achievements. And to honour the. brilliant refugee from the East, who courageously created the remarkable project .

It is heart breaking to realise that it fell into despair and dereliction through the insistence of one would -be buyer who stayed on there and  refused to relinquish the property. It does seem that in an almost epic way, goodness. life and creativity lost out to the rapacious. desire of one individual and to the decline of interest and sad withering of enthusiasm.. It's easy to say LYC couldn't have lasted. But look at Kettle's Yard. its origins were so much more modest and. ad hoc in its early days when students would bob in to borrow a painting and walk off with it under his( almost invariably) arm. Of rustic suppers and casual friendships and an attempt to make art part of ordinary life.

This show is an ingenious and absorbing multifaceted exhibition of an artist and innovator who otherwise would have been almost completely forgotten but whose memory and work is here preserved.

The Roman Road by Winifred Nicholson