Lot 519 D

'As the painter deals with colours and surfaces, so the kinetic artist works with movements tied to specific time frames. Surprisingly, the types of movements available are fairly simple and small in number.
Occidental music uses twelve tones; kinetic art has very few more at its disposal. Their canon, as with the range of tones, must also fall within the receptivity of people. The sweeping, spinning, oscillation and vibration of parts, which consequently move through the space - up and down, here and there, to the right, to the left - and the intonation of these movements through acceleration or deceleration - there aren't many more possibilities. However, this modest spectrum is enough to produce masterpieces. I am quite interested in manifestations of nature such as plants or the sea. However, none of my sculptures constitutes the slightest attempt to reproduce or mimic nature, much less to interpret or reveal it.
I study and use the movements as set down by the laws of nature, so far as my understanding and technical abilities allow. These movements and the omnipresent force of gravity are the only things I use from nature. If a reflection or a hint at animated appearance are found, this is only because the forces that move them are at work everywhere in nature. Only thus, from their movements, can my abstract structures become analogies of organic life.' (Geroge Rickey, Über kinetische Skulpturen, in: Wieland Schmied (ed.), George Rickey, exhib.cat. Kestner-Gesellschaft Hannover, St. Gallen 1976, p.13/14).