George Rickey Lot n° 21

George Rickey Two Open Triangles Up IV 1983 Kinetic stainless steel sculpture with two movable triangles Height approx. 133 cm, depth approx. 18.3 cm. Length of legs 122 cm, 86,5 and 86,5 cm each. Signed and dated 'Rickey 1983' and numbered on the plinth. Copy 1/3 - With slight signs of age. With written confirmation from Philip Rickey, The Estate of George Rickey, East Chatham, dated 07/10/2019. Provenance Zabriskie Gallery, New York; Christie's New York, 11.05.2016, lot 299. Exhibitions Kinderhook 1983 (Landhaus Galleries), A spring Art Event to benefit the Columbia County Council of the Arts. "George Rickey kinetic sculptures consist almost entirely of rectilinear forms: long, tapering wings and rectangular or square surfaces of stainless steel. But the trajectories that these rectilinear forms draw into space are curved. This distinction is important because for Rickey, the movements of the forms are themselves. Movement, speed, duration are his real materials. He explores a counterpoint of visible and invisible geometry in constructions as simple and straightforward as Shaker tools, yet as mysterious in their meaning as God's compasses in medieval depictions of creation. Although Rickey's sculptures move in clear and fixed paths, these movements are determined to the randomness of the wind, making them complex, random, and always mysterious. [...] Their movements are meant to be slow, balanced and still, their form of unadorned simplicity. This aesthetic stems from the desire that nothing should distract from the determination of space by movement. The slow, changing rhythm of his sculptures is difficult to interpret and mysterious, not intentional or mechanical. The slow movements increasingly engage the viewer; Rickey's sculptures are not just looked at, they are looked at as one looks at the sea or waving cornfields." (Hayden Herrera, in George Rickey. Sculptures Material Technique, exhibition cat. Amerika Haus Berlin 1979, p.12/13).