Olafur Eliasson Waterfall Inaugurates Vermont Art Center

The Hall Art Foundation in Reading, Vermont, is opening its doors to the public, and greeted visitors with a freestanding waterfall by Olafur Eliasson. The secluded contemporary art space was founded by collector couple Andrew and Christine Hall—he’s a very successful hedge fund manager and oil trader from the UK. The new art center, which was formerly open only by appointment but will now observe more regular opening hours, according to the Boston Globe, is launching with a show of Eliasson’s environmentalist, science-driven artworks. Also on view are works by Georg Baselitz and Neil Jenney.

The Vermont farm is just one of the places where the Halls house and display their vast art collection. Others include the annex the couple paid to have built to house their Anselm Kiefers at Mass MOCA and a gallery at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford (Andrew Hall’s alma mater). And next year they will open a museum in Germany housed in the Schloss Derneburg castle, former home of Baselitz, another of their favorite artists.

The Vermont space may not be a castle, but it is housed in a historic farmhouse on a bucolic property. Known as Lexington Farm, it was built in the early 1800s, and operated as a dairy farm up through the 1980s.

The Hall Art Foundation’s Olafur Eliasson exhibition is on view in Vermont through November 30, 2014.