Kinetic sculptor Reuben Margolin has been making things that move in one form or another for as long as he can remember. As a kid, he loved physics and maths
(particularly constructions that you can make with a straight-edge and a compass)
Maths and the Art of Motorised Poet Tables
He went to college to study maths then changed to major in geology because he wanted to go camping, then changed to anthropology because he wanted to go travelling, then graduated with a major in English because he wanted to be a poet, and set off with a typewriter strapped to the seat of his motorcycle.. planning to write a poem at every stop as he travelled across the country.
Unfortunately the muse of poetry did not appear at every stop so he had a rethink and decided perhaps what he needed was a table to write and philosophise at at… an idea which evolved to a table with wheels which he could drive across the country…
Patterns of Time and Motion
Always fascinated by the natural world and the patterns and movements in nature, Reuben started trying to capture some of these movements and portray them as kinetic sculptural forms. He now works from his studio in Emeryville, California making large-scale kinetic sculptures from wood and recycled materials. Some have been inspired by the splash of a falling raindrop, others by the locomotion of a caterpillar (which took two months figuring the maths of the movement before construction began), and even a rafting trip inspired a sculpture based on the undulating eddying currents caused by the paddles in the water.
Reuben also builds various types of pedal powered rickshaws, he still paints and also collaborated with Rebar in 2007 to create the PARK(cycle) for PARKing day. The PARK(cycle) was an open space, public, pedal powered mobile..22 feet long which included a lawn and a tree, which they cycled around San Francisco.
In Autumn of 2010, Margolin installed “Nebula”, a kinetic art work with 4,500 amber crystals, in the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas. The piece has been described as “perhaps the most ambitious kinetic sculpture ever commissioned.
