George Rickey (1907-2002)

‘I found that I did not merely want to set a static art in motion, nor did I want to describe the dynamic world around me with a series of moving images. I wanted the whole range of movements themselves at my disposal, not to describe what I observed in the world around me, but to be themselves, performing in a world of their own.’
—GEORGE RICKEY

With its kinetically-charged polychrome forms, George Rickey’s Eight Rectangles, Eight Squares, Hanging, Variation II (1994) is an eloquent synthesis of geometric machinery and the unseen forces of nature. The mobile is composed of stringent structural shapes – long tapered rectangles and ridged squares – that rotate mid-air in bewitching chromatic harmony. Connected by delicately manipulated steel, the work builds upon Alexander Calder’s pioneering mobiles: kinetic structures subject to the slightest gust of air. Movement cascades through Rickey’s hanging forms, pushing the sculpture into lyrical, balletic motion. The resulting choreographic patterns are of more interest to Rickey than the aesthetic quality of each geometric unit: motion, inertia, gravity and speed define the composition just as much as the tangible media he uses. As the artist explains, ‘nature itself, with its forms and its order, can now be brought into art, not as model or inspiration as before, but as a component for the work’ (G. Rickey, quoted in George Rickey : Skulpturen, Material, Technik, exh. cat., Amerika Haus Berlin, Berlin, 1979, pp. 14-15). The son of an engineer, Rickey incorporates his father’s line of work into his practice, using weight and balance as means of animating his mobiles. Initiated in the late 1940s, his mesmerizing sculptures represent an important milestone in the history of kinetic abstraction. Refusing passive observation, they immerse the viewer in a hypnotic symphony of colour, form and movement.