Major extension with artist James Turrell

The ARoS Aarhus Art Museum is delighted to announce details of a 40 million EUR extension project, entitled The Next Level, in collaboration with American artist James Turrell. The extension is planned to open to the public in 2021 and will contain several new facilities including a 1,400 metre² subterranean gallery and two art installations by Turrell, one of them titled The Dome, a semi-subterranean installation. The extension is the brainchild of Erlend G. Høyersten, Director of the ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, and will be realised in collaboration with Turrell and Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects. This is Turrell’s largest museum project to date. 

A new film introducing The Next Level can be viewed here 
The Next Level will extend from level 1 of the museum to the forecourt of the neighbouring Officerspladsen square. From outside, the first two underground galleries will be completely hidden, with Turrell’s The Dome elevated nine metres above ground level. The extension will connect to the existing building, working with the natural flow of the museum, which forms a public bridge between the Aarhus river and the square of the Aarhus Music Hall, an important cultural centre of the city. Colour and light will bring visitors into a series of galleries and exhibition spaces, stretching almost 120 metres below the surface to The Dome.

Measuring 40 metres in diameter and 17 metres in height, The Dome will act as an open-air gallery for performance artists. Since the 1960s, Turrell has worked with light, colour and spatial installations. He has received international recognition for his work with permanent installations in over 26 countries. Turrell is a trained psychologist and has studied mathematics, geology, and astronomy. A common feature of his work is enveloping the visitor in light and colour in a manner that is heavily controlled by the artist.

Erlend G. Høyersten, Director of the ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, said: “We are delighted to unveil plans for The Next Level and to be working on this ambitious project with James Turrell. At ARoS, we know that art is indispensable to a lot of people and suspect that still more could benefit from it, because of its potential to impact a person’s outlook as well as their thinking. The Next Level will merge art and architecture, and will make the journey through the museum an engaging and enriching experience for the public. I like to think of the museum as a mental fitness centre and this extension will expand upon this idea.”

The ARoS Aarhus Art Museum (Aarhus, Denmark) was established in 1859. It is Denmark’s largest art collection outside of Copenhagen and is widely known for Your rainbow panorama by Olafur Eliasson. In 2016 the museum welcomed over 835,000 visitors and is expecting more than a million visitors in 2017. It owns a notable collection of Danish art that spans 300 years, with works from the Danish Golden Age, COBRA paintings, Neue Wilden from the 1980s, modernist pieces from the 1900s, abstract art and modern works by Miwa Yanagi, Carsten Höller, Tony Oursler, James Turrell, Bill Viola, Pipilotti Rist, Elmgreen & Dragset and more. The museum contains four large exhibition spaces and the ARoS Focus Gallery. Each gallery presents special exhibitions with national and international artists such as Grayson Perry, Robert Mapplethorpe, Joana Vasconcelos, Bill Viola, Olafur Eliasson, Paul McCarthy, Shirin Neshat, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.

The project is supported by
Købmand Herman Sallings Fond
Ny Carlsbergfondet
The municipality of Aarhus

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SUTTON: Caitlin Collinson
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