Alan Gibbs (born 1939) is a New Zealand-born businessman,
entrepreneur and art collector. After a successful business career in
New Zealand, which made him one of that country’s wealthiest
individuals, he relocated to London in 1999. He retains strong links to
New Zealand through his development of Gibbs Farm, one of the world’s
leading sculpture parks. Among his many business interests, he is founder of Gibbs Amphibians, which pioneers High Speed Amphibious technologies. Wickipedia
A sports version of Alan Gibbs amphibious vehicles.
GIBBS FARM
On Friday 26 October, Logan and Shirley organised a ticket for Prabhash, Desika and myself to join them and hundreds of art-lovers, celebrity hunters and just curious locals to sortie about Alan Gibb's rolling farm estate beside Kaipara Harbour 50 kms north of Auckland. The near 5 kilometres walking circuit brings the penitent pilgrim from one art station to the next..... perhaps penitent that they had not armed themselves with the standard Compestella staff and water gourd.
Gibbs and his architect son-in-law Noel Lane continue to convene artists from all over the world and invite them to produce site specific art-works for what is fast becoming one of the most significant sculpture parks in the world.
Alan threw down the gauntlet at his initial meeting with the first contributor Richard Serra when he said "If you're going to do something here, I want your best effort." Alan and Noel more often than not become collaborators in the production of the pieces as the size of the works, in keeping with the scale of the landscape, often requires solving engineering problems.
Our party setting out on the art expedition. photo Prabhash Dias
Two Emus strut before Richard Serra's steel Te Tuhirangi Contour photo Gibbs Farm website
Orchestrated water jets almost obscure Snelson's Easy K and Venet's 88.5 Arcx8 photo P.Dias
Prabhash and Desika take shelter in Marijke de Goey's The Mermaid bridge
Sol Le Witt's Pyramid (keystone NZ) keeps security busy discouraging climbers.
This ever changing wind mobile by George Rickey can delay the fascinated pilgrim
Logan - our safari leader - confronts another Australian emigree
In a pond in the gully the Floating Island of the Immortals by Zhang Wang
On a nearby hilltop Neil Dawson's tromp l'oeil Horizons challenges us not to see in 3D
Gibb's house on the opposite hill the destination of Daniel Buren's Green and White Fence
Unlike the restrained visitors, Gibb's daughter got to stand on one of the giant blocks of Leon van den Eijkel's Red Cloud Confrontation in Landscape at her outdoor wedding on the farm. A family friend Richard Bramson and his wife were guests at the event.
To remind Alan of his childhood near the Rakaia River, Peter Nicholls meandered his red painted eucalypt monument Rakaia across the gully floor. On the ridge Kapoor's giant looms.
A nearby stand of living eucalypt hide a very private playground where
Alan and his friends play war games in a mocked-up Wild West Village.
A bird attempts a fly-through of NewZealand artist Graham Bennett's Sea/Sky Kaipara
Reminiscent of birth and eternity, Anish Kapoor's Dismemberment Site 1 photo Prabhash Dias
The work has a quiet leeward side and a dramatic seaward trumpet that swallows the view and the wind of the sea. Human visitors appear like ants approaching a carnivorous plant.
Only from one grassy vantage point can both ends of the trumpet be viewed.
This year saw the most recent and most spectacular work installed - Bernar Venet's
88.5 ARC x 8. Each steel arc measuring 27 metres in height pay homage to the sunrise.
Desika poses with New Zealand artist Chris Booth's Kaipara Strata photo Prabhash Dias
As close as I got to Andy Goldsworthy's installation Arches down on the Kaipara tidal flats
New Zealand artist Jeff Thomson's Giraffe, made of corrugated iron, stands 6 metres tall
only 100 yards from the Giraffe House with its living breathing real giraffes
the Zebra corral where the two geldings are very much in love with this splendid stallion
while this young llama seems proudly aware that he's not just an ordinary sheep.
Eerily observed by the sole sentinel on the ridge, we make our way back to the car,
happy in the realisation that New Zealand's royal is a democratic prince with good taste.
