Having finalised the finances and ensured political back-up for the project, ARoS was, in July, able to make public the realisation of the museum extension The Next Level. Before the project goes ahead, a presentation of it will take place in the ARoS Focus gallery on level 5. The audience will have an opportunity to see materials and sketches showing the original ideas and brand-new renditions of the project.

Moreover, the exhibition includes two light works, Alta (Pink) (1968) and Stufe, Red (1968), by James Turrell, illustrating the artist’s eminent talent for working with light, colours, and spatial installations. The scale of these two works is comparable to Turrell’s work Milkrun III (2002), which forms part of ARoS’ permanent collection and can be experienced in the gallery for installation art at level 0.

About The Next Level

The Next Level evolved from an idea tabled by Erlend Høyersten, museum director, in collaboration with James Turrell and Morten Schmidt, partner, Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects. The project is a physical manifestation of ARoS’ vision for the museum of the future where the effect on community, society, and human understanding will conceivably be based on art-related experiences.

The extension consists of a subterranean gallery space measuring 1000 square metres and James Turrell‘s gigantic work, The Dome, seventeen metres high and thirty-eight metres across with a view to the unending skies, which will offer a unique experience of international dimensions and profound spiritual connotations. In addition, The Annual ARoS Pavilion event will take place between the museum and The Dome. Each year, a new temporary pavilion will be erected by some of the world’s most innovative architects. 

About James Turrell

Since the 1960s, the American artist James Turrell (b.1943) has worked with light in spatial installations in his practice. He addresses how space and light may expand human perception and understanding of the world. Turrell’s art has a spatial character, striving to facilitate a slow contemplative experience almost as a counterpart to the world’s ever-increasing fixation with speed. His works envelop the audience through changing light exposure, thereby creating quite a unique and especially spiritual experience of time and space. Turrell has shown at art museums around the world and his monumental and immersive installations can be seen in more than twenty-six countries.

Since 1974, Turrell has worked to convert a big extinguished volcano in the vicinity of Flagstaff, Arizona, into an astronomical structure inspired by ancient observatories. This project, known as the Roden Crater, is not yet open to the public.

Press photos can be downloaded free of charge from Dropbox when citing the name of the photographer.

For further information, please contact: 
presse@aros.dk / 0045 2888 4464