Li Lin: A discreet collector’s vision comes to life
‘For me, collecting has been a learning experience,’ she says, as she prepares to open her Renzo Piano–designed cultural complex
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Li Lin, a native of Hangzhou – the ancient capital of the Southern Song dynasty, also commonly known as ‘heaven on earth’ – is a petite, soft-spoken, and sensible woman. She is known for a go-with-the-flow attitude that is rarely seen in someone who helms a large conglomerate with an international reach. The company, JNBY Group, is one of the most successful organizations in the Chinese garment industry and comprises more than a dozen brands, encompassing menswear, womenswear, childrenswear, and lifestyle. ‘Like many children of my generation, my parents made the life decisions for me,’ she says. ‘As a child, I read a lot of Western literature that ultimately shaped my personal values. I think I have an affinity for creativity. In this sense, [I believe that] no matter what environment I came from, I would have always steered toward this direction.’
When JNBY was still just a storefront in 1990s Hangzhou, Li met Geng Jianyi, Zhang Peili, and many other first-generation contemporary Chinese artists through a journalist friend. Some had been members of the famous experimental art group Pond Society in the 1980s, while others had participated in the ’85 New Wave art movement. These seminal figures became Li’s lifelong friends and first artworld mentors, and she went on to become an early patron of Chinese contemporary art, supporting many impromptu exhibitions and artist-run online projects at a time when art galleries and institutions were uncommon. In 2008, Li co-founded Imagokinetics Lab with the late artist Geng Jianyi as a nonprofit space dedicated to encouraging and stimulating young artists’ and designers’ imaginations. ‘At first, I would buy artworks from my artist friends,’ she says. ‘When I was on the road, I would buy art from galleries that I wanted in my home. Back then, I didn’t intend to build an art collection. It was not until 2008 that those areas of my interest gradually became clear. For me, collecting has been a learning experience – I often bought artworks first and would then begin to research and learn about the artist’s practice.’
Before the outbreak of the global pandemic halted the globetrotting collector’s adventures, Li would spend half her time in Hangzhou – her base for home and work – and the other half traveling around the world. On these trips, she visited art museums, galleries, and landmarks conceived by her favorite architects.
Her appreciation for Renzo Piano’s designs led her to invite the architectural giant to design JNBY’s headquarters as part of a superblock, which is now Hangzhou's own landmark. Called OōEli, the striking enclave consists of 17 freestanding buildings arranged around an urban park, with the JNBY offices standing among an art center that houses Imagokinetics Lab, a theater, a bookstore, a hotel, shops, and other offices. While Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) and the Hangzhou firm Group of Architects (GOA) collaborated on the construction, the leading Japanese Zen-garden designer Shunmyo Masuno and American plant-ecology expert Paul Kephart oversaw the landscaping and garden designs. It was a monumental, eight-year project that goes a long way in fulfilling Li’s personal wish to have everything she appreciates and enjoys on her doorstep, for ‘when I am old and unable to travel the world to look at art.’ For the creative community in Hangzhou, OōEli’s presence has already been felt.
It was Piano who encouraged Li to set up a permanent space for Imagokinetics Lab and her art collection. Since 2014, she has been working toward adding the art museum BY ART MATTERS to the complex, with Italian writer and curator Francesco Bonami as its director; it is now due to open in November 2021. However, Li is as discreet about the museum’s vision as she is about the artists and artworks that make up her personal collection. Asked whether she plans to be involved in curating the museum’s exhibitions, she was happy to say, ‘I will leave that work to the professionals.’ However, as with anything Li sets her mind to, we know we have a lot to look forward to.
Fiona He is a writer, a translator, and a curator with a forthcoming group exhibition "House of Perception" due to open at the end of March, at Antenna Space, Shanghai.
Top image: OōEli architectural enclave in Hangzhou, China. ©️ 天目里; photo by 朱海.