Donald Lipski

American, born 1947

BiographyAmerican sculptor. He received a BA from University of Wisconsin in 1970, and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI, in 1973. From 1973 to 1977 he was Assistant Professor of Art at The University of Oklahoma in Tulsa. While his first interests were in the video and behavioural art of the 1970s, he became known in the early 1980s for large installations of sculptures made from objects found discarded in the street.

In "Passing Time", exhibited in 1980 at The Butler Institute, he employed various large and small objects to produce an installation with abstract formal concerns, but a light, comical air. In the mid-1980s Lipski's work was increasingly marked by the iconography of Surrealism, and he began to exhibit sculpture concentrated more on the impact of single objects.

The series "Building Steam", employed such motifs as books and devices such as wrapping, along with incongruous surfaces and strange appendages. For example, "Building Steam #383", exhibited in 1985 at The Butler Institute, is a fire bucket encased in a bandage with a shiny metallic curved surface occluding the bottom of the bucket.

The "Waxmusic and Candelabracadabra" (c 1992) series continued to mine Surrealist effects with a series of sculptures employing white candles and the empty boxes of musical instruments. The series "Who's Afraid of Red, White and Blue?" brought this approach into conjunction with the motif of the American flag, which was combined in various ways with often old, rusty found objects redolent of Americana. The frequent use of circular motifs in this series suggests the continuance of his initial formal interests alongside his later figurative approach.

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