Denmark’s ARoS Aarhus Art Museum has unveiled As Seen Below – The Dome, a Skyspace by James Turrell, a monumental new installation that merges architecture, light, and perception into a singular spatial experience. Opening to the public on 19 June 2026, the project marks the completion of The Next Level, ARoS’s decade-long expansion vision developed in collaboration with the architectural practice Schmidt Hammer Lassen. As Seen Below positions itself as a new cultural landmark for Aarhus while continuing Turrell’s lifelong exploration of light as a medium.
The Art of Looking Up
Created by renowned American artist James Turrell, the installation represents the artist’s 100th Skyspace and is described by Turrell himself as his most ambitious Skyspace to date. For over five decades, Turrell has investigated the relationship between light, space, and human perception, becoming one of the most influential figures associated with California’s Light and Space movement. Trained in both art and perceptual psychology and inspired by countless hours spent flying as a pilot, Turrell’s work invites viewers to reconsider how they see the world around them. His installations transform perception itself into the artwork.
The new work occupies a monumental dome measuring approximately 16 meters in height and 40 meters in diameter, making it the largest Skyspace realized by James Turrell within a museum setting. Visitors enter through a subterranean corridor before emerging into a vast domed chamber where carefully calibrated light alters the perception of the surrounding architecture and the sky above. Inspired in part by the spatial qualities of ancient domed structures such as Rome’s Pantheon, the installation uses a central aperture to frame the sky as a living canvas. The result is a space where boundaries between architecture, atmosphere, and perception begin to dissolve.
How As Seen Below Turns the Sky into Art
As Seen Below is the concept of the Skyspace, a typology developed by James Turrell over several decades. These architectural environments feature an opening to the sky that encourages visitors to engage with changing light conditions and atmospheric phenomena. By carefully controlling the surrounding environment, Turrell creates optical effects that alter how colors and distances are perceived. As he explains, the architecture brings the sky closer, making the act of seeing itself the artwork.
The installation unfolds through several modes of experience. In Open Sky, the aperture remains exposed, allowing visitors to encounter the sky as a seemingly flat and intensely colored field. During Colour Shift, the opening closes, and the dome becomes an immersive environment in which the walls appear to dissolve into luminous gradients. The most dramatic experience occurs during Twilight sessions at sunrise and sunset, when programmed light sequences interact with changing natural light conditions, creating the illusion that the sky’s color is transforming. These moments reinforce Turrell’s enduring fascination with perception and the subtle ways light shapes human experience.
James Turrell’s Skyspace: A Study in Light and Perception
For ARoS, the unveiling of As Seen Below represents the culmination of a vision more than ten years in the making. The project forms part of The Next Level, which also includes the recently opened underground Salling Gallery and a new public Art Square. Conceived as an expansion that would extend the museum beyond traditional exhibition spaces, the initiative sought to integrate architecture, public space, and large-scale artistic interventions into a cohesive cultural destination. Schmidt Hammer Lassen played a central role in shaping this vision, working closely with the museum and the City of Aarhus throughout the project’s development.
As Seen Below demonstrates, museums are increasingly becoming sites for immersive, experiential art. James Turrell invites them to inhabit a carefully orchestrated environment where perception becomes the subject. The installation transforms the simple act of looking at the sky into a contemplative encounter with light, time, and space, reaffirming Turrell’s status as one of the foremost artists working at the intersection of art and architecture today.
