Taking eye-trickery to a whole new level – the otherworldly New Zealand sculpture park Gibbs Farm

Date
10 August 2012

How often do artists get commissioned to create pieces of work that can be, well, as big as they want? The answer is not often. But Alan Gibb, founder of Gibb’s Farm sculpture park in New Zealand, has taken matters into his own hands and making sure that his favourite artists are getting the brief they deserve.

For the last 20 or so years, art collector Alan has been gradually gathering a handful of artists – most of them world-famous – and commissioning them to create a piece to fit into his 1,000-acre park. The criteria is simple – the art must react to the landscape, which just so happens to be incredible, undulating fields and an enormous natural harbour. With such a dreamy brief, it is not surprising that each artist has responded with full force, and has subsequently created pieces of art they would never have dreamt of creating otherwise.

Our favourite? It has to be Neil Dawson’s Horizons – a 15m high and 36m long metal outline of a piece of cloth, floating gently to the surface of the earth. Utterly breathtaking.

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Gibbs Farm: Neil Dawson

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Gibbs Farm: Neil Dawson

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Gibbs Farm: Neil Dawson

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Gibbs Farm: Neil Dawson

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Gibbs Farm: Anish Kapoor

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Gibbs Farm: Daniel Buren

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Gibbs Farm: Richard Thompson

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About the Author

Liv Siddall

Liv joined It’s Nice That as an intern in 2011 and worked across online, print and events, and was latterly Features Editor before leaving in May 2015.

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