Making New Worlds: Li Yuan-chia and Friends review – the open invitation of one remarkable man

‘Li’s art – so lyrical, so condensed – sets the tone for everything that follows’: Li Yuan-chia in his studio at the LYC, Cumbria, 1969. Courtesy of Demarco Digital Archive University of Dundee and Richard Demarco Archive Photograph: Image courtesy of Demarco Digital Archive University of Dundee & Richard Demarco Archive

I can hardly think of a more uplifting show for the dying days of autumn than Making New Worlds at Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge. Everything about it is bright, beautiful, hopeful and as amiable as the subtitle suggests. For the Chinese artist Li Yuan-chia (1929-94) had many friends, and attracted so many more to his extraordinary “museum” in Cumbria in the 1970s that over 300 artists eventually came to work in Banks, a remote village beside Hadrian’s Wall. This show is filled with their spirit.

Li, as he was known, was born in Guangxi and studied in Taipei, where he co-founded the Ton Fan group, who found global fame as Taiwan’s first abstract artists. He was rapidly spotted by European curators and shown alongside Derek Jarman and Yoko Ono in the newly opened Lisson Gallery in 1967. He was much praised for his airy white panels of magnetic discs that could be moved in endless permutations, casting an infinite variety of shadows; objects of contemplation that are exquisitely made.