In collaboration with The George Rickey Foundation, Inc., and The George Rickey Estate, LLC., Kasmin Gallery is opening a major public exhibition of sculptor George Rickey’s work along the central median on Park Avenue between 52nd and 56th Streets this September. The public exhibition will coincide with an exhibition of large-scale works at the Kasmin Sculpture Garden in Chelsea and the publication of the first biography of the artist.
The exhibition titled “George Rickey: Monumental Sculpture on Park Avenue”— will be staged in collaboration with The Sculpture Committee of The Fund for Park Avenue and the NYC Parks’ Art in the Parks program, and will go on view from August 30 through late November 2021. The presentation will feature nine of Rickey’s classic, monumental kinetic sculptures some of which have not been exhibited in many years.
The Park Avenue installation will showcase much of Rickey’s diverse and energetic repertoire, with the earliest made in 1964 and the latest completed in 2002. Breaking Column II (1989), one of Rickey’s most important and complex works, will tower over Park Avenue at 25 feet tall, playfully disrupting the stasis and calm demeanor of a classic architectural form, as its discrete components fall apart and reassemble on the wind’s whim. On verdant Park Avenue, the show will vividly demonstrate Rickey’s interpretation of the dialogue between the built and natural worlds.
Six Lines in a T (1964-1979) will also be on display. Comprised of six hand-crafted and reflective stainless steel blades, this masterpiece, meticulously engineered and perfectly balanced, creates the illusion of organic independent motion from the slightest current of wind. On Park Avenue, Rickey’s explorations of cyclical movement will also be seen in works such as Space Churn with Octagon (1971), a series of concentric forms that each spin at different speeds, creating varying patterns, and Untitled Circle (2002), the exhibition’s most minimalist piece, a stainless steel ring that asserts a quiet power with its effortless movement.
Simultaneously, three Rickey sculptures will be exhibited at Kasmin gallery’s rooftop sculpture garden in Chelsea, viewable from the High Line at 27th Street. All three sculptures date back to the 1960s, including Rickey’s iconic Two Red Lines (1963-1975), one of the first to feature what would become the artist’s signature vertical blades. The blades of this piece, wrote Hayden Herrera for Artforum in 1975, “intersect, scissor open and slow increasingly as they near the horizontal, as if they were summoning energy for the return voyage,” adding that the movements in all of Rickey’s works, “are complex, random and endlessly intriguing.” This outdoor installation is Kasmin gallery’s first exhibition of Rickey’s work since announcing their representation of the artist’s estate in November 2020, and will remain on their roof through the run of the Park Avenue show.
