Li Lin: Beyond Cloth Clothes, Entangled With Beauty

On February 6, Hong Kong Dudley hall presented an art collection exhibition "curve of buoyancy" by four outstanding female collectors. The name of Li Lin, founder of Jiangnan cloth clothing group, is in it. According to Alan lo, co-founder of Dudley hall, the exhibition aims to show their unique aesthetic ideas through the perspective of female collectors.

During the exhibition, Li Lin was interviewed by 21st century economic reporter to explain her views on art and collections.

Li Lin collects the work "hair 7" (2005) by Chinese artist Zhang enli.

The "heroine" in the collection world

In fact, in the collection industry, Li Lin is no longer a new name.

At the end of 2020, art news, a 116 year old American art magazine, published the latest "top 200 list of the world's top collectors" in 2020. Among them, there are 12 seats occupied by collectors in the mainland of China, and the name of Li Lin in Jiangnan cloth clothes stands out. But for Li Lin, it's a common occurrence - it's the fifth consecutive year since 2016 that she's been on the list. In a long list mainly from real estate giants, car dealers and well-known e-commerce entrepreneurs, she is somewhat special: on the one hand, she is one of the few collectors in the fashion industry on the list; on the other hand, unlike other domestic female collectors, who are usually listed as husband and wife, Li Lin is on the list as an individual female collector 。

Talking about the origin of art collection hobby, Li Lin thinks it is more like a natural process. According to her introduction, since the 1990s, since there are some friends who are engaged in art work, it is natural to visit their studios and often see them create their own works. "The process of their creation always appeals to me. That's how I started, and I'll gradually collect some works. "

Li Lin is not very interested in the preservation of the value of the collection, which the public is concerned about. She said frankly: "carefully manage and protect the collection, and leave the rest to the market." Instead, she thinks the most interesting thing is the story behind each piece. "Every time I look at my collection, I think of a lot of interesting memories, such as a long trip on the American highway with the artist of a work, or hearing the sound of an instrument I've never seen before in a studio in Mexico," she told reporters. Another example is that when receiving art works, they find that the artists have packed their works carefully and carefully, so that some of them are reluctant to open them. " Li Lin is good at understanding the delicate and profound texture behind her from some simple daily details. Maybe this is what Li Lin is unique about.

"The collection is diverse, rigid and flexible." This is Luo Yangjie's evaluation of Li Lin's collection in this exhibition. It is reported that the inspiration for this exhibition is from the work of Wendell Dayton, an American Abstract sculptor, brought by Li Lin, named "for Calder" (1975). "For Calder" is a light steel combination sculpture as flexible as the instep of a ballet dancer. The tiny metal arc shows the subtle possibilities of hard but soft, fragile but flexible. In addition to Wendell Dayton's works, Li Lin also brought works by Polish artist alicja kwade, African American sculptor Melvin Edwards, and Chinese artist Zhang enli. 24 hours (2015) is a pair of white rectangular cardboard inlaid with a set of brass pocket watch pointers pointing to different directions, which represents alicja kwade's inference of constantly exploring the objectivity of time and space, and exudes a sense of calm, sharp and concise Edwards's welded steel sculpture "beykat" (2004) touches on issues such as racism, violence, labor and his African American heritage through industrial elements; and from Hauser, the world's top gallery& Hair 7, written by Zhang enli, the first Chinese artist signed by Wirth Gallery, depicts the back of five ordinary people's heads, bringing people's attention back to simple daily life patiently. Every piece of work has the aesthetic tendency of tranquility and minimalism of Li Lin as a collector.

Li Lin collects the work for Calder (1975) by Wendell Dayton, an American Abstract sculptor. The source of the pictures in this paper are all data pictures

Art and beauty

Li Lin has been engaged in the design industry for more than 20 years, and her understanding of "beauty" is very practical. "I think beauty lies in form and is not limited by form. A dress is a minimum building for people," she told reporters Beauty needs to find the carrier of expression in life, but it should be higher than the concrete things to stimulate the thinking of life at a higher level. The carrier of Li Lin's expression of beauty is the clothing with the style of "Jiangnan cloth clothes". However, the expansion of her business has not reduced her time spent on art. In addition to staying in Hangzhou for about half of her annual work, she likes to fly around the world to see different art museums and exhibitions. For Li Lin, watching the exhibition can let her draw inspiration from different art works, and then infiltrate her ideas of art into brand creativity.

In 2008, Li Lin and artist Geng Jianyi jointly launched the non-profit art organization "imagination mechanics laboratory" to explore and support young artists. In 2013, Jiangnan cloth clothing cooperated with vice, a youth subculture communication platform, to launch a photography project "tour" based on the theme of the new season's lookbook photography. Young photographers from 10 countries were invited to shoot unconventional young people in Jiangnan cloth clothes. At the end of 2015, Jiangnan cloth clothing's official house concept store located in Liangmaqiao, Beijing, was officially unveiled. Through cross-border cooperation with different artists, the theme of the shop was changed from decoration to display layout every three months, so as to integrate contemporary art into commercial space by immersing exhibition. In 2020, combined with the theme of "identity liberation" of JNBY 2020 autumn and winter series, they cooperated with the team of "BIE other" to shoot three groups of vlog short films. The six protagonists discussed the dilemma and thinking brought by identity constraints around the identity of "art second generation", world citizens and artists. These experimental measures, which are bold and innovative in the view of traditional business models, but do not have much direct profit-making effect, but can keep the designer brand which has been through 27 years as always young, pioneering and light.

On October 18, 2020, tianmuli, known as the literary and commercial office complex, opened in Hangzhou. Li Lin is the important promoter behind this project. Eight years ago, she invited Renzo Piano, a famous Italian architect who once designed the Pompidou Art Center, to design an office building in Jiangnan cloth clothing, in order to find an office environment suitable for Jiangnan cloth clothing. From the original idea of building an office building, it has gradually developed into 17 single building complexes with rich cultural and artistic ecological functions, including art gallery, show, theater, bookstore, etc. "The pleasure of art lies not only in the work itself, but also in how to find a suitable space and situation for it, or even create a space completely." Li Lin told reporters: "the space design of the whole building of b1ock buyer's department store in the park was completed by the artist theaster gates, and several works of this artist in my personal collection have also become a part of the whole space. In the new headquarters building of Jiangnan cloth clothing, which is located in the park, I also selected some works to show

Let oneself immerse in the art that I like as much as possible, and hide the works of art in the working environment. This kind of love from the heart and the unintentional closeness may be exactly the idea that Li Lin wants to convey personally - the so-called truth of art and design is just to let beauty integrate into daily life, just like the wind through the forest.

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