Kaipara Harbor is New Zealand’s largest bay and arguably one of its most impressive landscapes. It is in this monumental setting that Alan Gibbs, one of the richest men in the country and above all an art collector, decided to buy a farm with more than 4 km2 of land dedicated to hosting works from all over the world. . Thus was born the Gibbs Farm, the largest open-air contemporary art gallery in the world.
1. An open-air art gallery
Contrary to a normal art gallery which buys the works following a distant exhibition most of the acquisitions of the Gibbs Farm are commissions. The goal is to integrate these custom-made works into the natural setting . Alan Gibbs explains the concept as follows: “ the challenge for the artists is the immensity of the landscape, it scares them at first ”, but the result is rather successful. For more than twenty years , the farm has hosted the contemporary artists works of twenty-two of the most renowned . However, it is indeed a private collection. The farm does not have fixed opening hours for the public. It can be visited free of charge a few days a month by reservation. It’s sure that walking in the open air while taking your dose of culture is more fun than locking yourself up all day in a museum!
2 — Amazing works
The park is notably home to a gigantic trunk 85 m long designed by British artist Anish Kapoor. There is also the largest tesla coil in the world made by Eric Orr or the “green and white barrier” by Daniel Burren: a long alignment of poles separated by 4 m from each other over a total length of 3.2 km . But the most stunning work from a visual point of view is this strange napkin that looks like it was drawn with a marker on the landscape: “Horizons” by Neil Dawson.
Article updated on 7 December 2022
