Color in the Shadows: Bay Area Cyberart by Oliver Art Center (review)

forces. This was a modern development resonant of the pattern of vectors to which physicists had reduced the con­ ceptual image of matter. Freed of the tyranny of the carved stone, these tenuous segments began to move. Calder's mobiles made for a spectacular initiation of kinetic art. This is where Rickey entered the stage. But whereas Calder's mobiles, sus­ pended from the ceiling, were all but independent of the force of gravity and essentially an indoor play of formal re­ lations, Rickey is very much an outdoor person, conscious of the pervasive pull of gravity and of the motor power of the wind. His art depicts the interaction between the human sense of orderly form and the autonomous forces of na­ ture. Its outcome remains always partly uncontrollable and unpredictable. His figures are rooted in the ground and subjected to the constant attraction of gravity, but their teams of slight ten­ tacles reach actively into space and swing in horizontal rotations to the im­ pulses of the wind. Rickey works with ribbons and sheets of steel. He has experimented with solid planes and boxes, but tends to prefer the mere outlines of shapes, which avoid the clumsier resistance of solids and create transparent space. They do not block the view of what is behind them. "Blades in diverse con­ figurations," says Rickey, "follow a kind of kinetic drawing in space, first planar, then defining volume—space cut up by lines, pierced by lines, limited by lines" (p. 324). This creates a delicate art, re­ sponsive like the foliage of trees to the slightest movement in its surroundings. But the incorporeal quality of these sculptures also creates a problem, when they are combined with architecture. A recent work, which serves as a frontis­ piece for the present book, reaches to­ ward die sky as a zigzag lightning of steel rods, 6 meters high, in front of two very bulky buildings on the central square of West Berlin. Is this slender piece of sophisticated intelligence really hefty enough to respond as a partner to the buildings, as did traditional statues? George Rickey in Berlin, 1967-1992-was published bilingually for the occasion of the artist's eighty-fifth birthday. Rickey has been a favorite of Berlin's art world since he arrived diere as a visiting artist in 1967. Particularly in the pre-unification years, the city preserved some of the old-fashioned virtues Rickey cherishes. As die grandson of a watch- and clockmaker who grew up in a small town in Massachusetts, he much appreciates Berlin's blacksmiths and plumbers, craftsmen of the traditional sort, who are willing to handle unusual challenges. The book collects a number of helpful writings by Rickey himself, testimonials by German artists and critics, and die catalogue of die large exhibition that paid tribute to the American artist. Reference 1. Wolfgang Böhm, ed., The Building and the Town (Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 1994). JOURNAL CAHIERS ART ET SCIENCE edited by Allain Glykos. Editions Confluences, BP 112, 33027 Bordeaux Cedex, France, 1994.181 pp., illus. ISBN: 2-910550-03-6. In French. Reviewed by RogerF. Malina, 95 Hiller Drive, Oakland, CA 94618, U.S.A. The first issue of a new annual journal, Cahiers art et science, hasjust been pub­ lished under the editorship of Allain Glykos. The intent of the publication is to make known to a wider audience die discussions and events organized by the Groupe Science Culture at the Univer­ sity of Bordeaux I as part of tiieir "Arts et Science" project. This project in­ volves two elements: the development of an art-science curriculum leading to a degree (die French UV degree in first-cycle science) and a seminar series diat will bring artists and scholars to visit the program. This issue includes full documentation of die Arts et Sci­ ence Project at Bordeaux, including an initial description of a program to in­ volve art students from die Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux in research laboratories. Essays and interviews with die seminar participants include texts byJacques-Louis Binet, Jacques Mandelbrojt, Regis Debray, Michel Mendes-France and odiers. Other sec­ tions include a book reviews section and a...