Downtown Sculpture Spins Again After Rehab

A familiar piece of Northeast Ohio public art came back home over the weekend.  The kinetic sculpture in front of the P-N-C headquarters in downtown Cleveland was reinstalled Sunday after a year of restoration work.

Three gleaming pieces of stainless steel, each shaped like the letter L, have slowly spun in the wind at the northwest corner of E. Ninth and Euclid for over three decades.  But, in recent years, the late-George Rickey's 38-foot sculpture started slowing down.  PNC regional president Paul Clark says the piece hadn't been cleaned since it was installed in 1980.

“There used to be a tree next to it,” Clark adds.  “And one of the "Ls" would kind of bang into the tree from time to time.  The tree was removed.”

But the damage had been done.  Amherst-based McKay Lodge Art Conservation Laboratory was in charge of the face-lift.  Conservator Jim Gwinner says balance is a key issue for Rickey's works.

“They're all very kinetic and they move very easily,” he says.  “You have to kind of know the way that they're built and know how they come apart.  So, it's quite tricky to uninstall and re-install.” 

That tricky process took a couple hours, Sunday morning, and now George Rickey's Triple-L Excentric Gyratory Gyratory III is gyrating once again.