Artists & Works

Andrew Topolski
American
(b. 1952)
UNTITLED (1986)
graphite, pigment, transfer type on paper
23 3/4" x 37 3/4"

STYLE: conceptual art,
abstraction

Andrew Topolski uses the technical languages of science and the harmonic languages of music in his delicate, superbly drafted drawings and sculptures. Made with powdered graphite, powdered pigment, and acetate templates, the works are in some ways blueprints for sculptures and architecture that will not be built.

Topolski was born in Buffalo in 1952, receiving his undergraduate and graduate degrees in art from the State University of Buffalo. He now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, between trips to Europe and around the U.S. to participate in exhibitions of his work. During the 80s, Topolski was engaged in a series of drawings, mixed media constructions, and sculptures which employ geometry, numerical progressions, and musical notations.

CRITICAL EXCERPTS

Charlotta Kotik, in Andrew Topolski, Galerie von der tann, Berlin catalog, 1991
"In the early 1980s the drawings were characterized by employing large geometric shapes rendered in primary colors. In these the admiration and understanding of the principles of geometry and consequently, constructivism were defined and a solid base for subsequent work was established...The work underwent careful analysis and nowadays the basic geometric forms belie the richness and importance of the ideas the artist has chosen to address...Topolski who has developed a strict, essentially constructivist formal system of configurations of various symbols. Striving for objectivity, the artist employs geometry and mathematics in deriving his images. The essential impetus for each work is in fact a deconstructed text. The origins of each piece can be traced to the given text usually scientific in nature and dealing with the technical information related to nuclear energy and armaments in general...Topolski transcribes the letters of this fragment in the predetermined intervals of numbers on a standard X-Y graph...Since the letters used in the X-Y graph correspond to those used for musical notes, the artist also derives a score for a musical performance to accompany his visual presentation...Frequently laid on transparent materials, the drawings have an atmospheric quality."

Unpublished interview with Elizabeth Licata, 11/92
Topolski: "Everything is done with a powdered material: powdered graphite, powdered pigment. And the application is with a brush. Acetate templates (cut-out shapes) are used, and they're varied—circular, or whatever. Things are not always predefined. I do work with a sketchbook but it's not always the last word. I may have an idea, and it will change as the drawing goes on, and the pigment and graphite is brushed on. I don't don't rub anything in with fingers or anything like that. It's all done with a brush, and it's just applied. The density depends on the amount that's applied and how long I do it. It can be very dark. A lot of people think that airbrushing is used, but if you look really close at the drawings, you can tell it's not airbrushed. They have that feeling because recently, I've been using vellum, which has a very smooth surface. When the graphite or pigment hits the vellum, it has a very soft effect. With paper, you get a more painterly feel, but vellum is different. It has much more luminosity to it.

"It's a very tedious process, and a very unforgiving process. When you put something down, you don't get the opportunity to change it. When it's there, it's there, especially with vellum. If it's not the way you want it, you start all over again.

"What influenced me was my parents taking me through museums as a child. I can't remember not enjoying visual things. I always really liked Richard Serra's work. I hadn't seen that drawing. It's a beautiful drawings. His sculpture shows how a black square or tilted arc isn't really that simple. Fragments of architecture influence me. Music influences me. The energy of it. What the composer had in mind and what you're hearing aren't necessarily the same thing. You conjure up a thing or have an experience but it doesn't reflect the composer's intentions. Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, whatever—their music is still as compelling as the day it was written, but the feelings they inspire through the centuries are always different."

Eric Siegeltuch, Linkages, catalog, Galerie du Genie, Paris, November 1989 "...we immediately perceive that these simple geometric forms are acting as vessels for ideas and for an intellectual commitment which reaches far beyond the visual to the essence of living in the late twentieth century technological age...his role as a medium through which flows the languages of our ages...His vocabulary of post-industrial shapes and objects stems from his absorption of scientific texts, and his extrapolation of ideas from the forms we associate with nuclear technology. Missile silos, bunkers, cooling towers and containment domes, when abstracted, become the tall mysterious objects in his drawings...Color in these works has always been emblematic to the release of heat and energy in the use of this technology. Blue, red and cadmium yellow, components in the heat of a flame, have predominated...Topolski is now employing a rich and earthy unber...These pieces, which are also blueprints for subsequent sculptures, contain elements of verbal as well as harmonic language, which are transposed according to a standard x-y graph, and also incorporating the geographic coordinates of the places on the maps he uses, into relationships of musical notes which then ultimately become fully scored and performed compositions...When expanded and conceived in three dimensions, Toploski's language takes the form of large multifunctional interactive kinetic sculpture...an ongoing system which is constantly being expanded and refined to include an ever richer interaction of art, music, and technology."