Double L Excentric Gyratory

'The visible movement is the design', George Rickey said of his kinetic pieces. The source of this effortless movement is sensed but not seen, as the perfectly balanced L-shaped vanes move lazily, in response to the slightest breeze, or dive and whirl with stronger gusts. It reflects the mood of a particular day as the austere geometric shapes, with their randomly-patterned reflective surfaces, describe perfect arcs and planes in space and, when the wind dies, return to the symmetry and equilibrium of the vanes' vertical stations. Kinetic sculptors need to understand not only the aesthetics of the forms that they use but also the physical and engineering principles that will allow that extra component, movement, to occur in predetermined ways. Here there is an interesting tension set up between the sense of freedom, implied by the movement, and the fact that the elements are invisibly restrained from ever coming into contact with each other. This elegant work is set amongst trees in the Gallery's sculpture court and its purchase coincided with the 1985 exhibition Chance and Change: a century of the avante-garde. 'I think that randomness is a component of nature, and this is one way in which nature is introduced into art, not as something to imitate, but as a kind of component . . . it gives it a very special kind of life'. (from The Guide, 2001)

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