Neil Dawson Horizons 1994 Welded and painted steel 15 x 10 x 36m
Sol LeWitt Pyramid (Keystone NZ) 1997 Standard concrete blocks 7.75 x 16 x 16m
Richard Serra Te Tuhirangi Contour 1999/2001 56 Corten steel plates 252m x 6m x 50mm
Zhan Wang Floating Island of Immortals 2006 Stainless steel 4.8m x 8.6m
Leon van den Eijkel Red Cloud Confrontation in Landscape 1996 25 cast formed and painted concrete cubes 17.5 x 17.5m
Dismemberment, Site 1 2009 Mild steel tube and tensioned fabric West end 25 x 8m, East end 8 x 25m. Length 85m
Chris Booth Kaipara Strata 1992 Crystalline sandstone slabs and river boulders 4 x 2.3 x 5m
Graham Bennett 4 tri-part stainless steel and glass units 2 x 2.1 x 25m © Gibbs Farm 2010 Sea/Sky Kaipara 1994
Gibbs Farm is an unusual setting for a sculpture collection. The North Auckland property is dominated by the Kaipara Harbour, the largest harbour in the Southern hemisphere. The harbour is so vast it occupies the whole western horizon; and it is very shallow, so when the tide goes out, the shallows are exposed for several kilometres and the light shimmies and bounces off it across the land. Equally, it is the forecourt to the prevailing westerly weather that sweeps, sometimes vehemently, across the land. Everything in the property flows towards and eventually into the sea; and every work contends in some way with the slide seaward.
The flow of the land, the immense body of water, the wide harbour flats and the assertive variety of the elements have all imposed themselves on the artists. Gibbs acknowledges that
“the challenge for the artists is the scale of the landscape; it scares them initially” and demands something more from them. Walking the land visitors can appreciate how each artist has come to terms in their own way with the gravitational pull that is exerted on everything as the mountains roll into hills and slide into gullies and slope down towards the wide flat expanse of the Kaipara harbour.
After nearly twenty years Gibbs Farm includes major works by Graham Bennett, Chris Booth, Daniel Buren, Bill Culbert, Neil Dawson, Marijke de Goey, Andy Goldsworthy, Ralph Hotere, Anish Kapoor, Sol LeWitt, Len Lye, Russell Moses, Peter Nicholls, Eric Orr, Tony Oursler, George Rickey, Peter Roche, Richard Serra, Kenneth Snelson, Richard Thompson, Leon van den Eijkel and Zhan Wang. Most works in the collection are commissioned; and commissioning new works rather than buying from an exhibition involves the satisfaction of dealing with the artists, as Gibbs comments “they’re interesting because they’re winners, tough, ambitious”.
—Rob Garrett
Gibbs Farm is open to artists, educational institutions, charities and the public, by prior appointment only.
Categories
Tags
- Andy Goldsworthy
- Anish Kapoor
- Auckland art
- Bill Culbert
- Chris Booth
- Daniel Buren
- Eric Orr
- George Rickey
- Graham Bennett
- Kaipara Harbour
- Kenneth Snelson
- Len Lye
- Leon van den Eijkel
- Marijke de Goey
- Neil Dawson
- new zealand art
- Peter Nicholls
- Peter Roche
- Ralph Hotere
- Richard Serra
- Richard Thompson
- Rob Garrett
- Russell Moses
- Sculpture
- sculpture park
- Sol Le Witt
- Sol Lewitt
- Tony Oursler
- Zhan Wang
