Gibbs Farm Sculpture Park Trivia Quiz

Answer: Alan Gibbs

Alan Gibbs purchased the property in 1991 and the many sculptures dominating the landscape are part of his private art collection. Gibbs Farm Sculpture Park is the largest facility of its type in New Zealand.

Gibbs Farm is home to around 20 exotic animals, including this flock of ostriches. Despite the big crowds of people visiting, they were not perturbed by all the strangers watching them.

The other answers are famous New Zealanders. Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay made the first successful ascent of Mount Everest in 1953. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has been prominent in opera and classical singing. Sir Peter Jackson has directed and produced many feature films, including the "Lord of the Rings" and "Hobbit" trilogies adapted from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Answer: 6m (20')

"Te Tuhirangi Contour" (1999/2001) has been constructed of 56 steel plates. The dimensions of the sculpture are 252m x 6m x 50mm (827' x 20' x 2").

The steel plates are leaned 11 degrees from vertical. They trace a contour line across the ground. According to the artist, this "collects the volume of the land". When I explored this sculpture, it was obviously a favourite shelter for farm animals, given the volume of dung collected at its base.

Richard Serra was born in San Francisco and is regarded as a process artist where the final product is less important than how the artwork is constructed. He is no stranger to large steel sculptures, having produced a considerable number of them between 1970 and 2015.

Answer: True

The Kaipara Harbour is some 60km (37 miles) long from North to South. It was formed from drowned river valleys. There are numerous estuaries, rivers and streams flowing into the Harbour, giving it a shoreline length in excess of 3,000km.

Literature references support the idea that the Kaipara is one of the world's largest harbours, but finding definitive lists is difficult. Definitions of "harbour" vary and different measures of "size" abound.

The sculptures mentioned in the question are covered in the next two questions.

Answer: PolyVinyl Chloride

All the answers are valid acronyms or abbreviations but only polyvinyl chloride is a synthetic plastic polymer capable of forming the membrane used in this sculpture.

This is one big artwork. It is 85m (279') long and can be seen from most parts of the Gibbs Farm Sculpture Park. The ellipses are the same dimensions, but are rotated 90 degrees to one another. The western end is 25m (82') tall and 8m (26') wide, while the eastern end is 25m wide and 8m tall.

Sir Anish Kapoor was born in Mumbai, India but became a British citizen. He received a knighthood in 2013 for his services to visual arts. He is seen as a sculptor and specialist in installation art. The list of his works is extensive and he regards this piece as an architectural project though Kapoor says that his works are neither pure sculpture nor pure architecture.

Answer: Wellington

All the answers are NZ cities with Auckland having held the capital-role for a short period of time in the 19th Century. Wellington is centrally located in the country at the southern end of the North Island and became the capital in 1865.

There are only two "Wind Wand" kinetic sculptures by Len Lye in existence. The other is in New Plymouth and it has also suffered from vandalism. The Gibbs Farm sculpture is a red fibreglass tube, 45m (148') in length. It was constructed after Lye's death according to his concepts: it waves lazily in the breeze and at night a soft red glow is emitted from the light at the end.

Lye said, "Their weight is so lightly balanced that if a bumble bee stood on the ball at the top they would dip a bit, and the more honey he carried the more it would dip."

Wellington City has a Len Lye computerised "Water Whirler" (2006) on its waterfront. The sculpture was undergoing repair when its fibreglass pole was snapped by a man climbing it. He was prosecuted and fined $1,000 and given community work for intentional damage. The "Water Whirler" is valued at $300,000.

Len Lye (1901-1980) was a New Zealand artist who became a US citizen in 1950. He is known for his kinetic sculptures and film making.

Answer: Trompe l'oeil

All the answers are French terms for artistic techniques or practices. "Oeuvre" refers to an artist's entire body of work. "En plein air" means "in the open air" and is used to describe paintings done outside instead of in a studio. "Mise-en-Scène" translates as "placing on stage" and its modern usage is about all the elements that make up the setting of an artwork.

"Horizons" (1994) is a work by Neil Dawson. Made from welded and painted steel, it measures 15m x 10m x 36m (50' x 33' x 118') and really does look real until you get close. The trompe l'oeil technique works well and this was one of my favourite pieces among some great sculptures.

Neil Dawson was born in Christchurch, NZ and is known for his large-scale sculptures. Many of his works incorporate optical illusions.

Answer: 5

There are five folds in this earthwork. The highest fold is 11.5m (38') and the entire piece covers 3ha/30,000m² (7.4 acres/323,000 square feet). Creating the five undulations required 105,000m³ of earth fill (137,000 cubic yards).

The folds can be grazed by Gibbs Farm's animals. The earthwork changes the appearance of these coastal flats and represents the earth's surface being changed by both internal and external forces. On its completion in 2013, this was Lin's largest work.

Maya Lin was born in Ohio and is seen as a designer and artist, including land art as shown here. She also won the US competition to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.

Answer: Jacob's Ladder

The sculpture in the distance in the photo is "Jacob's Ladder" (2017) by Gerry Judah. Like many other works at Gibbs Farm Sculpture Park, this piece is big and visible from most parts of the facility.

This "Jacob's Ladder" is constructed from 480 pieces of square sectioned steel tube stacked on top of each other. Each layer is slightly different to those below and the result is a graceful 34m x 8m (112' x 26') curving structure.

Gerry Judah was born in Kolkata, India but his family moved to London, UK when he was 10 years old. He is known as an artist and designer. His many works include two sculptures at St. Paul's Cathedral London commemorating the First World War.

Answer: Africa

There is one recognised species of giraffe with nine subspecies, all native to Africa. Rothschild's giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi) are found in Uganda and Kenya and their conservation status is "endangered", more so than the other subspecies.

Giraffes have a prehensile (capable of grasping) tongue that they use to harvest leaves from treetops. Their tongues can be 45-50cm in length (18-20"). Giraffes' tongues are coloured blue, purple or black because the increased concentration of melanin there functions as a sunscreen and helps prevent sunburn.

One of the features of this open day at Gibbs Farm Sculpture Park was that animal keepers were available to speak with visitors and one of the highlights of my visit was seeing the giraffes and learning more about these majestic creatures. Breeding among animals in different private collections is a way to preserve these animals while maintaining genetic diversity.

Answer: Scotland

One of the other sculptures at Gibbs Farm is called "Arches" (2005) by Andy Goldsworthy. It is a series of 11 freestanding arches going from the shore of the Kaipara Harbour out into the water, looking just like a Loch Ness Monster. The "Arches" sculpture is built with pink Scottish sandstone from Leadhill near where Gibbs' ancestors came from.

Red, long-haired Highland cattle originated in the Scottish Highlands and off-shore islands. These are hardy animals and primarily a beef breed. With its distinctive markings, the Belted Galloway is from the Galloway region of south-west Scotland. These cattle beasts produce highly marbled meat and are sometimes used as dairy animals.