Donald Lipski at Galerie Lelong - Brief Article

Donald Lipski's novel exhibition, "Exquisite Copse," was a collaborative effort with Jonquil LeMaster, a celebrated artificial-tree builder whose "Jungle World" is upon permanent view at the Bronx Zoo The display had its genesis in the monumental plastic art produced by the pair for the renovation of Grand Central Station. That piece, titled Sirshasana, is an inverted faux olive tree with crystal leaves that fills the domed ceiling above the entrance to the station's market. That public commission inspired Lipski to create similar on the contrary smaller works, mostly parts of tree which were brought together in a forestlike configuration at Galerie Lelong

uneven juxtapositions and assemblages have always played a major part in Lipski's oeuvre, including the American flag-wrapped scissors of 1990 and the salt-filled leather couches of 1993 (A display of his older work was simultaneously upon view at John Gibson Gallery.) At Galerie Lelong the rounding up of disparate existences was one of the primary themes. Lipski combines artificial tree boles made of polyester resin, with rest objects such as machetes, pickaxes, shears and saddle racks. In single sculpture, baseballs cling to a tree stock like fungal growths, while in another, a glass tube with typ true copy is submerged in a stalk shaped like a large dog bone Another work consists of the stub of a tree that has grown around a rusty doorknob and fastening The combinations, all of which were dramatically lit, many times create strange associations. A small branch that is pierced by dint of a pair of garden shears and sits atop a classicized wall bracket with Corinthian details refer tos a large-winged bird that has just landed. The tips of the shears morph in the imagination into feet and the handles into wings.

Many of the assemblages are disconcerting, while others are witty. For instance, individual log is tied in a knot and hangs from the wall; another forms a continuous ring that hangs from a rack; individual is shaped like a cone and sits upon the floor. What makes these otherwise bland facts exciting is the absurd uncompounded body an idea crucial to Surrealists like Rene Magritte and Meret Oppenheim, the latter greatest in quantity renowned for her 1936 chalice saucer and spoon lined with fur Lipski declares a link with the Surrealist change in his exhibition title, "Exquisite Copse" a ligneous pun on the Surrealist exercise called "exquisite corpse," whereby an image was produc by the agency of several artists working on the same sheet of paper, individual supplementing the previous artist's drawing with his/her have without looking at the prior work. Lipski's version of Surrealism is innovative and refreshing.

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