George Rickey Double L Excentric Gyratory IV

This exhibition of George Rickey’s work features six stainless steel kinetic sculptures: Two Conical Segments Gyratory Gyratory II (1979), Five Open Squares Gyratory Gyratory (1981), Four Trapezoids As Two Rectangles (1985), Two Lines Excentric Jointed W/Six Angles (1985), Triple L Excentric Gyratory Gyratory IV (1985), and Two Open Rectangles Diagonal Jointed II (1985). The works range in height (not including bases) from 8 feet (Experimental) to 18 feet (Triple L Excentric Gyratory Gyratory IV). Rickey (1907–2002, b. South Bend, IN) gave the surfaces a random, allover pattern with a rotary grinder to make them catch and reflect light without mirroring the environment. The works move at a slow fluctuating pace, but the rate of movement changes depending on the velocity of the wind.

Rickey’s kinetic sculptures are composed almost entirely of straight-edged shapes—lines, squares, rectangles, triangles and trapezoids, and open rectangular or trapezoidal frames of stainless steel. However, the trajectories traced in space by these shapes when in motion are curved, and for Rickey are of greater interest than the forms themselves; he has often referred to his blade sculptures as “drawing in space.”