Park Ave. to get ‘Ada’ by Katz, Rickey’s kinetics
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
The Park Ave. Malls in the 50s blocks will be fi lled
with interesting art — some of it gently shifting in
the breeze — for three months starting later this
summer, when the Parks Department honors two prolifi
c, legendary American sculptors with installations.
The work of Alex Katz and George Rickey will be displayed
along the malls from mid-August through mid-
November.
Seven pieces on the planted medians between 50th
and 57th Sts. will be 8-foot-tall replicas of Katz’s 2019
“cutout” sculpture “Departure (Ada),” a colorful porcelain
enamel-and-steel image of his wife and longtime
model Ada walking away.
In addition, a total of nine kinetic sculptures by Rickey
will grace the malls between 52nd and 56th Sts. Rickey
is regarded as one of the most inventive and infl uential
sculptors of the 20th century, with a career spanning
seven decades. Many of his sculptures are forms created
with lines and simple shapes, like rectangles, trapezoids
and cubes in stainless steel, and are designed to move
when hit by air currents.
The pieces on the malls will be stainless-steel replicas
of sculptures created at different points throughout Rickey’s
career and will range from 13 feet to 36 feet tall.
This is not the fi rst time the city has honored Ricky. In
2000, his work was featured on Park Ave. as the inaugural
temporary public art installation by the Fund for Park
Avenue’s Sculpture Advisory Committee.
This sculpture of Ada will be on the Park Ave.
Malls between 52nd and 53rd Sts. later this
summer.
A kinetic sculpture by George Rickey. The Park
Ave. Malls will spot nine of the artist’s movable
sculptures starting later this summer.
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