We recently had the good fortune of visiting Grounds for Sculpture, an outdoor sculpture park located at the epicenter of New Jersey. That's right -- our very New Jersey. Funded in part by the heirs of the Johnson & Johnson fortune, the 35-acre park is itself lovingly sculpted with its gardens, trees, and lake.
Unlike other sculpture gardens such as Storm King, this park focuses on contemporary artists, who can only rarely find the space for their large, typically outdoor works. Sure, there's the occasional witty Red Grooms and melancholy Magdalena Abakanowicz, but there are also plenty of new artists like Nina Levy and Helena Lukasova being shown. Our favorite was Brower Hatcher's "Fan" and "Tower" pieces -- tall, glass-laden fixtures which stood delicately in an enclosed field.
About an hour from Manhattan, Grounds for Sculpture has an excellent café, a full-service restaurant called Rat's, and a fine gift shop that showcases real crafts by real craftspeople. Surprisingly uncrowded, unpretentious, and inexpensive, Grounds gets the highest recommendation.
