Vogue: Ready for a Sculpture Park Summer? Here Are the Best Outdoor Art Venues to Visit Around the World
If you ever needed proof of the increasing interest in sculpture parks right now consider the fact that Charli XCX chose one of the best sculpture parks in the world, Storm King Art Center—an hour’s drive from NYC in the Hudson Valley—over a sweaty nightclub as the site to relaunch her remix album last fall, declaring to her fans, “We’re fine art bitches now!”
Sure, displaying sculpture in an outdoor setting has existed ever since Neanderthals would arrange rocks to create ring-like sculptures in caves; but the emergence of outdoor sculpture parks in the 1960s and 1970s was in part a response to finding a setting to display abstract and often monumental work by artists such as Richard Serra and Alexander Calder. By moving to an open-air environment, sculpture was freed from the confines of the traditional white cube gallery setting and a merging of art and nature started to take place.Today, there are over 300 sculpture parks in the US alone which saw an uptick in popularity during the Covid pandemic that has only increased in the years since. The opportunity of viewing art in a natural landscape democratizes the viewing experience as well as challenging us to see it anew. As an ambitious new sculpture park opens in Spain this month, we take a look at some of our favorite sculpture parks around the world.
Storm King Art Center (New Windsor, New York, US)
Opened in 1960 as a showcase for the Hudson River School of painters, the 500-acre property now boasts an impressive collection of artists including Magdalena Abakanowicz, Mark di Suvero, Alice Aycock, and Maya Lin. Last month the institution unveiled its $53 million Capital Project reimagining how visitors arrive, explore, and interact with the art and the landscape—marking its first major renovation since its founding in 1960. The 2025 season kicks off with newly commissioned works from artists Kevin Beasley, Sonia Gomes, and Dionne Lee, as well as new acquisitions from Lee Ufan and Arlene Shechet.
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and Sculpture Park (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Twenthy miles to the north of Copenhagen and located on a sprawling estate on Denmark’s eastern coast is the country’s best modern art museum, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Founded in 1958 by Knud W. Jensen originally as a hub for modern Danish art, the museum quickly broadened its remit to include international artists and the Museum today boasts over 4000 pieces of art spanning 1945 to present. The sculpture park, which boasts sweeping views of the Øresund Sound, contains over 50 works from the likes of Henry Moore, Joan Miró, Jean Arp, and Alexander Calder, as well as site-specific installations by Richard Serra and George Trakas.
Tarot Garden (Tuscany, Italy)
In 1979, the artist Niki de Saint Phalle embarked on a two-decade-long project that would become the apotheosis of her life’s work. Tarot Garden is an elaborate 14-acre sculpture garden in the village of Capalbio, Tuscany, that she intended to be “a sort of joyland where you could have a new kind of life that would just be free.” Inspired by the fanciful style of Antoni Gaudí’s Park Güell, in Barcelona; Saint Phalle worked with a team of collaborators that included her husband, Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely, on 22 large-scale concrete sculptures, each representing a mystical figure from the tarot deck. The result which was finally opened to the public in 1998 is a veritable Eden of art featuring among its many delights, a sprawling, fantastical castle with a rainbow mosaic tower and a sphinx with mirrored blue hair and a bright-red crown. “I lost all notion of time and the limitations of normal life were abolished,” she wrote about her time working on the project. “I felt comforted and transported. Here everything was possible.”
Hakone Open Air Museum (Hakone, Japan)
Japan’s first open-air museum, the Hakone Open Air Museum opened in 1969 in the serene countryside setting of Hakone—a mountainous town in Kanagawa prefecture famed for its natural hot spring baths—about an hour south of Tokyo by train. Using nature itself as a dramatic backdrop, the 700-square-meter garden showcases 120 monumental sculptures by the likes of Auguste Rodin and Pablo Picasso—as well as contemporary Japanese sculptors like Goto Ryoji and Inokuma Genichiro—in a spectacular setting of glens, formal gardens, ponds, and meadows.
Château La Coste (Aix-en-Provence, France)
Nestled in one of France’s oldest winemaking regions near Aix-en-Provence and set against a 500-acre vineyard lies Château La Coste—founded by the property magnate and art patron Patrick McKillen in 2011, it’s since become one of the region’s cultural must-sees. A dream lineup of star architects—including Frank Gehry, Richard Rogers, Tadao Ando, and Renzo Piano—have designed pavilions for the space, while some of the impressive pieces in the collection include Tatsuo Miyajima’s illuminated flowers that sprout from the forest floor and Louise Bourgeois’s vast spider skating across a shallow pool.
Yorkshire Sculpture Park (Wakefield, UK)
In 1977, Peter Murray, a lecturer in art history, had the modest idea of putting some sculptures on the grounds of the 18th-century Bretton Hall estate in Wakefield, West Yorkshire—a city that was the proud birthplace of sculptors Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. Now, over 40 years later, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park encompasses 500 acres, making it the largest sculpture park in Europe. Apart from one of the best collections of bronzes by Moore and Hepworth, there are permanent and long-term installations by the likes of Helen Escobedo, Antony Gormley, Andy Goldsworthy, and James Turrell. This summer sees a major exhibition by the South African artist William Kentridge that will include several of his large-scale bronzes and six new monumental colored sculptures on parade in YSP’s historic landscape.
Museum of Underwater Sculpture (Ayia Napa, Cyprus)
Occupying a stretch of seabed 200 metres from the Ayia Napa coastline lies the Museum of Underwater Sculpture, one of the most otherworldly artistic experiences in the whole of the Mediterranean. The underwater sculpture forest features 93 sculptures by Jason deCaires Taylor including trees, plants, and children playing alongside mythical creatures, intended to explore man’s relationship with nature. Visitors can access the submerged sculpture park, which reaches a depth of 10 meters at its deepest part, by snorkeling, free diving or scuba diving.
Solo Sculpture Trail (Matarraña, Spain)
Launching this month in Matarraña, a three-hour-drive from Barcelona is Solo Sculpture Trail, an open-air sculpture park featuring 20 site-specific artworks by artists such as Christian Boltanski, Jose Davila, and Mona Hatoum set against the spectacular backdrop of the mountains of the natural park Puertos de Tortosa-Beceite. The ambitious project is the brainchild of Eva Albarrán and Christian Bourdais of Albarrán Bourdais gallery and located along 200 hectares of land that includes an organic winery, Venta d’Aubert, and Solo Houses, a collection of avant-garde holiday homes for rent. “We wanted the sculpture trail to respond to the majestic landscape, with its fields of vineyards and olive groves,” says Albarrán and Bourdais. “Many of the artists have created works in dialogue with the environment that go beyond the traditional confines of the art gallery. They invite us to pause and to take in the surroundings through their lens.”
