- 817
Li Yuan-chia (Li Yuanjia)
Description
- Li Yuan-chia (Li Yuanjia)
- Untitled
- ink and colour on paper, framed
signed in Chinese
Provenance
Private Italian Collection
Condition
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
As the political climate in Taiwan became increasingly tense, Li Yuan-chia moved to Italy with support from Italian furniture merchant and patron of the arts, Dino Gavina. He was a member of the Movimento Punto, a group that pursued a fundamentally spiritual means of art. They strived to “perceive the true essence of being in the reality of thought” as stated in the first Il Punto catalogue. As artists, they maintained an outlook that was unbounded by race or national borders. Indeed Li’s works became progressively conceptual, as his calligraphic strokes became more deliberate his colour palette concentrated in black, red, gold, and white; representing his desire to “draw and paint what the human eye cannot see: the purity and simplicity, the beauty and wonder of the world”2 A man who operated in paradox, Li sought to make his art accessible, believing its beauty was appreciated in tandem with its simplicity, though he was still conscious of how “the simpler a thing is, the more likely it is to be misinterpreted or even dismissed.” His artistic journey most notably culminated in the visual conception of a ‘tiny dot’, coined the Cosmic Point. It epitomised both the physical and theoretical motif of his works representing not only creator and viewer, but also “infinite space, the beginning and end of all things.”
Thus, while the present two paintings are manifestations of Li’s internal journey and artistic process, they also represent his experiment towards the reduction of colour and his preoccupation with Chinese symbolism. The limitlessness of the universe is characterized by the monochrome background, and each measured stroke, spiral, and dot comes to signify the origin and end of all creations. In particular, as Li distills his colour palette into the use of red, black, and green, and white and red in each painting respectively, the colours become even more pronounced and are able to work effectively in isolation. Li Yuan-chia’s brushstrokes revel in movement, especially when juxtaposed with the stillness of the areas of negative space. Rooted in traditional eastern philosophy, yet demonstrative of innovative conceptualism and distinctive cosmology, his paintings hang carefully in balance between simplicity what we would think in terms of complexity—ultimately provoking “a strong feeling of power and space.”3
1 Invitation to All & Nothing Show, 1968, a proposed performance at Speaker’s Corner, Hyde Park, which did not take place due to Li falling ill. Yeh, Diana. “Utopia Beyond Cosmopolitanism,” A Retrospective of Li Yuan-chia Viewpoint I, Taipei Fine Art Museum, 2014, p. 21
2 Quotation from ‘General Policy and Future Plans’, LYC Diary, 1977. Yeh, Diana. “Utopia Beyond Cosmopolitanism,” A Retrospective of Li Yuan-chia Viewpoint I, Taipei Fine Art Museum, 2014, p. 35
3 Li Yuan-Chia, “Poem”, A Retrospective of Li Yuan-chia Viewpoint III, Taipei Fine Art Museum, 2014, p. 20