Art City, New Mexico

Last April, my friend, Alan, and I took a trip to Tucumcari, NM, primarily to photograph iconic buildings and locations related to old Route 66, whose 100th anniversary is this year.  I wrote a couple of blog posts with our photos which you can see here and here.

A few miles outside Tucumcari is another area with much more contemporary art:  Art City, a 40-acre glamping and sculpture park which features large-scale installations similar to those you might see at Nevada's "Burning Man" festival.  

Art City is more than just an art park.  It aims to use art installations to create sustainable economic development in small, overlooked (i.e., bypassed) highway towns like Tucumcari.

We had a great time photographing the imaginative and intriguing pieces scattered throughout an open field.  Here are some examples:

The Lips

This is a stainless steel and aluminum piece by San Francisco-based street artist fnnch.  It's 10' x 20', weighs 3,000 pounds, and is the only large-scale sculpture he ever created.

Launch Intention

This is a 25'-long piece by Griffin Loop in the shape of a paper airplane.  It's made of steel and weighs four tons!  (Don't ask me how they transported it.)

Evolution Field

A visually fascinating piece by Matt McConnell, 12' x 30' of curving steel.

Centered

Five 8'-diameter concentric rings made of stainless steel and weighing 4,000 pounds; created by Darrell Ansted.

If you look carefully along the axis of the cylinder of rings, in the distance you will see . . .

Facing the Fear Beast

This gigantic piece, created by Tigre Marshaal-Lively, is made of steel and motorcycle tires.  It's 25 feet tall and 36 feet long, and weighs 8,000 pounds.

Facing the beast is a statue of a small human:

Art City is on NM highway 104 north of Tucumcari.  Google Maps says it's closed temporarily -- I hope not permanently because it's worth the side trip if you're traveling through Tucumcari on I-40.

If you would like to see these images in a larger format, please visit my photography website, Todos Juntos Photography, by clicking here.

Enjoy!