A kinetic sculpture by the late American artist George Rickey (1907-2002) became a little too kinetic on Wednesday (14 August), when one of the work’s two large metal hoops came crashing to the ground outside of News Corp’s Manhattan headquarters.
The sculpture in question, Annular Eclipse Sixteen Feet I (1998), is has been positioned outside 1211 Sixth Avenue (or 1211 Avenue of the Americas) since December 2017. On Wednesday evening, the journalist and Semafor co-founder Ben Smith posted a video on X taken shortly after the sculpture’s partial collapse, showing one large hoop on the ground and the other still swaying. When it is operating correctly, its two shiny, 25ft-wide metal hoops sway and rotate gently atop their base, a tall steel pole.
According to a worker at the building’s reception desk, the hoop closest to the building’s façade suddenly fell off on Wednesday evening around 6pm. The worker suggested that the articulated joint connecting the hoop to its base had rusted through. Luckily, despite occurring at peak commuting time, nobody was injured in the accident. As of this writing, the area around the sculpture has been cordoned off and the broken-off hoop is being stored on the sidewalk around the corner on West 48th Street.
George Rickey's Annular Eclipse Sixteen Feet I (1998) outside the News Corp building after part of the sculpture fell off Benjamin Sutton
Spokespersons for the George Rickey Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Since 2020, Rickey’s work has been represented worldwide by Kasmin; a gallery representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rickey, who was born in South Bend, Indiana, is best known for creating towering stainless-steel sculptures whose geometric forms are gently animated by the wind. Some feature long, lance-like points; others have rectangular panels and voids. His work is a fixture of public art programmes, museum collections and outdoor art venues around the United States, including the Storm King Art Center in upstate New York, the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC.
Rickey’s sculpture stands in the plaza facing the global headquarters of News Corp, conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s company. Among other facilities, the building houses the main studios for Fox News as well as offices for the New York Post and other News Corp properties.
Watch a short video about the installation of George Rickey's Annular Eclipse Sixteen Feet I (1998) outside 1211 Sixth Avenue: