Making New Worlds: Li Yuan-chia & Friends

Making New Worlds: Li Yuan-chia & Friends is the first book to document the extraordinary activity at the LYC Museum & Art Gallery in Banks, Cumbria between 1972 and 1983. The book establishes Li's work at the LYC as a form of worldmaking, connecting his cosmic conceptual art practice to his interest in participation and friendship, as well as his engagement with nature and the landscape.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 208 pages
Publication date: 13 November 2023
Publisher: Kettle's Yard Gallery

Making New Worlds: Li Yuan-chia & Friends is the first book to document the extraordinary activity at the LYC Museum & Art Gallery in Banks, Cumbria between 1972 and 1983. The LYC was the single-minded effort of the artist Li Yuan-chia, who moved to the rural North of England by way of London, Bologna, Taipei, and Guangxi, China. At the LYC, Li organized exhibitions, published books, exhibited archaeological artifacts, arranged workshops, and welcomed an array of visitors from local and international artists and art workers to nearby residents and travelers, many of whom became friends. In this book, which accompanies an exhibition of the same name at Kettle's Yard, the curators Hammad Nasar, Amy Tobin, and Sarah Victoria Turner establish Li's work at the LYC as a form of worldmaking, connecting his cosmic conceptual art practice to his interest in participation and friendship as well as his engagement with nature and the landscape. Nasar, Tobin, and Turner's account is accompanied by nine short texts – by Elizabeth Fisher, Ysanne Holt, Annie Jael Kwan, Lesley Ma, Gustavo Grandal Montero, Luke Roberts, Nick Sawyer & Harriet Aspin, Nicola Simpson, and Diana Yeh – that trace the diverse threads and ramifications of Li's practice historically and in the present. Richly illustrated, Making New Worlds offers a provocative new way of thinking the history of British art in the 20th century.

Weight: 562g
Dimension: 172 x 240 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781904561781