Visitors to the National Gallery of Art can now see on the east lawn of the East Building a newly acquired sculpture that will change form as they watch.
The work is an 18-foot-tall stainless-steel kinetic sculpture by American artist George Rickey, "Cluster of Four Cubes." It's a towering treelike shape with "branches" ending in four cubes. The cubes are precisely balanced so they tumble in the slightest breeze, almost but not quite colliding, and reflecting light on each other.This is the second Rickey sculpture in the National Gallery's collection, a gift of the artist and the Patrons' Permanent Fund.
Rickey was first a painter, then began producing movable works of art in the 1940s - he has never made a stationary sculpture. He has made specially commissioned large-scale works for many public sites in this country, Europe and Japan. He's now based in East Chatham, N.Y., and has studios in Berlin and Santa Barbara, Calif.