According to the City of Albuquerque Arts & Culture website, there are over 1,000 public art works throughout the city. One of those works, ‘Los Libros’, is a set of moving sculptures located at the Cherry Hills branch library that allows visitors to flip through the pages of giant metal books. On a plaque at the base of the sculpture it reads, ‘Turn “Pages” Carefully, as You Would Any Other Book’.
Las Cruces artist John B. Northcutt was commissioned by the city in March of 2012 to produce the sculpture, which was installed a year later June 26, 2013. With the help of two pick-up trucks, a trailer, and a Ford Escape, Northcutt transported the artwork from Las Cruces in several pieces. After a slow five-hour drive the artwork finally arrived at the Cherry Hills Library where a crane was used to lift the pieces fifty feet into the air over a tree line and onto concrete pedestals.
Northcutt’s art can be found in public and private art collections throughout the United States and Germany, including several in New Mexico such as ‘Spirit Catcher’ and ‘Full Moon Half Moon’. ‘Spirit Catcher’ is located at the Aztec Animal Shelter in Aztec, NM and ‘Full Moon Half Moon’ was installed in 2011 at the Cuba Public Library in Cuba, NM.
In an artist statement on Northcutt’s New Dimension Art Works Facebook page he says, “The existence of the multiplicity of planes is revealed when the viewer interacts with the work until another viewer moves and arranges the work.” Further down, the statement reads, “I have found that children instinctively understand the nature of my work and are eager participants.” He adds, “At time I worked thematically often abstractly drawing ideas from American Indian mythology, art history references, or observations on friends, thus giving the work an allegorical quality.”
