By LIZ HAGER
We’ve hunkered down into an indeterminately long recession. We’re tightening our belts, in the process shifting our discretionary dollars to less expensive entertainment options or forgoing some culture/entertainment items altogether.
Currently, most Bay Area art museums charge entrance fees in the double digits (the Oakland Museum is a notable exception). Not more than the climbing prices of movie tickets, to be sure, and still a deal, when you consider the amount of content that is available for the price. And yet, with scores of art galleries closed or closing, the opportunities to consume art are shrinking. These are exactly the kind of times that ought to make art lovers appreciate San Francisco’s commitment to art in public spaces.
Venetian Red has covered some pieces in the “public domain,” both permanent works (such as Michael Stutz’s Peplos Kore at SF Airport) and temporary installations (such as Patrick Dougherty’s Upper Crust resident in the Civic Center plaza until November). Today we initiate a more formal round up, periodically posting on the many of our Bay Area FAVs (aka Free Art Views).
George Rickey’s Double L Eccentric Gyratory sculpture (one of several versions he created) is located rather inauspiciously on the northwest corner of Larkin and Fulton at the edge of the Main Library’s footprint. Given the crowd of street habitués usually in residence on that corner, one might be forgiven for passing that point as quickly as possible, head down, etc. Still, we say, brave the crowd, pause and watch, Double L will make you forget (at least temporarily) its less beauteous surroundings.
One of two major American sculptors to make movement an integral part of his works (the other was Alexander Calder), Rickey produced kinetic sculptures as early as the 1950s and was the first to move his sculptures into outdoor environments. The stylistic influence of his early teachers Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant on Rickey’s later sculptural work seems self-evident; Rickey was heavily interested in the geometric minimalism practiced by the Constructivists (e.g. Malevich, Tatlin, Gabo, et al.). He wanted to make public art that could be appreciated by people who understood the beauty of machines, although his machines don’t have a work purpose.
Double L is executed in Rickey’s signature style—braised and polished stainless steel geometric forms, whose movement is facilitated by a system of pendulums, fulcrums, rotors, gyros and pivots. Propelled only by the action of gravity and wind (lots of that in SF), the two giant heavy “L”s twirl almost inconceivably in effortless synchronicity, appearing to come close to, but never once colliding. (Of course this adds a lot of drama to the experience of viewing.) After a few minutes in front of this sculpture, you will realize that the pair is engaged in an ancient human rite, the courtship ritual. It’s hard to believe that two large beams of steel could generate such a profound and ethereal experience.
Wider Connections
My SA Entertainment—“George Rickey’s moving sculptures make a stir in McNay retrospective”
Flickr—McNay retrospective
George Rickey in Indianapolis
Pink Martini—La Soledad
Venetian Red Art Blog 
