Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Seeing double

We came across a familiar sight in San Francisco - George Rickey’s Double L Excentric Gyratory outside the SF Public Library.  This one, of the edition of three, was made in 1982, three years before the version outside the Auckland Art Gallery. Now that’s an unusual numbering system given that AAG has number one of three in the edition. The OTN research team (#google #wikipedia) went to work and found that it looks like the final copy in the edition, Double L Excentric Gyratory – Pond, dated 1988, is still available via Rickey’s dealer Maxwell Davidson. The inclusion of the word ‘pond’ in the title perhaps points to yet another editioned version of Double L Excentric Gyratory. It’s on the cards considering there’s also an edition of three Double L Excentric Gyratory II that is, to all intents and purposes, exactly the same as the other DLEGs. All the IIs have been placed in prestigious American collections but weirdly they are dated 1981, a year before the SF version. It reminds us of NZ sculptor/photographer Boyd Webb who would change out some minor detail, like the colour of a character’s socks, in a photograph and go on to produce a different edition of a popular work.

Images: top to bottom left to right, George Rickey’s Double L Excentric Gyratory (produced in 1985) at the Auckland Art Gallery; outside the San Francisco Library and Double L Excentric Gyratory - pond in the stock of his dealer gallery. Double L Excentric Gyratory II at Pepsi Cola’s Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens and the Williams College Museum of Art. And in Sacramento.