James Turrell brings heaven below earth to Aarhus
In Aarhus, Denmarka low circular mound now rises next to the ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, its grass-covered dome cut from a dark eye that turns the Danish sky into part of the museum’s collection. Inside it sits As seen below – The Dome, a Skyspace with James Turrella permanent one light installation that opened in January 2026 ahead of the museum’s grand opening in time for the summer solstice in June 2026, drawing visitors under the museum grounds before gazing skyward.
The project marks Turrell’s 100th Skyspace and the largest ever installed in a museum context. At sixteen meters (52 feet) high and forty meters (130 feet) in diameter, the vaulted chamber gives ARoS a new subterranean space for light, perception and weathering, while expanding a campus already shaped by large-scale installation art such as Olafur EliassonYour rainbow panorama over the roof of the museum.
Photographer Danica O. Kiss experienced the space – before the public opening of the ARoS Aarhus Art Museum on 19 June 2026 – to document its immersive and otherworldly atmosphere.
from above, the grass-covered dome sits next to the museum | images © Danica O. Kiss
entering through the earth
Visitors arrive at James Turrell’s Skyspace at RESIDENCE through an underground corridor, leaving the surface of the city before arriving inside the circular chamber. The approach is part of the logic of the project. THE artist has described As Seen Below as an experience of consciously entering the earth and emerging into the heavens, and this movement gives the installation its natural rhythm before the light even begins to shift.
Inside the dome, a large circular opening frames the open sky. The space has minimal visual cues, so the eye adjusts to color, scale, and the shifting edge between architecture and atmosphere.
‘Architecture brings the sky close, so you understand that the very act of seeing is the work of art itself,‘ Turrell says, giving a simple description of a work that depends on how the viewer himself looks.
As seen below – The Dome, a Skyspace by James Turrell opens at ARoS Aarhus Art Museum
light as material
The facility operates in several modes. In Open Sky, the oculus remains open and the ceiling frames the sky as a changing color field during museum hours. In Color Shift, the opening closes and the chamber becomes a fully internal environment, with a light wash on the walls until the dome seems to lose its solid surface.
During twilight sessions at sunrise and sunset, the artificial color moves with the changing daylight, making the sky appear to respond from above.
Turrell’s long practice has often returned to this unstable boundary between what is present and what is perceived. Trained in the art and psychology of perception, and long associated with the Light and Space movement, the artist has spent more than five decades treating light as something to engage, feel and question.
‘I work with light to shape the way we perceive,‘ the artist continues, a line that specifically lands directly inside the Aarhus dome.
visitors enter the permanent installation through an underground corridor
a new level for ARoS
The opening completes a major expansion of ARoS developed with Schmidt Hammer Lassen and the Municipality of Aarhus.
Alongside Skyspace, the project includes The Salling Gallery, an underground exhibition space for annual contemporary art commissions opening in 2025, and ARoS Art Square, a permanent outdoor space for art presentations. Funding came from the Salling Foundations, the New Carlsberg Foundation, the Municipality of Aarhus, ARoS and a private anonymous donor.
Viewed from above, the new work appears as a circular form placed on the museum grounds, sitting close to the red brick body of ARoS and the elevated ring of your rainbow panorama. The connection is immediate without feeling repetitive. Eliasson’s corridor colors the city from the roofline, while Turrell’s dome draws visitors below grade and asks them to look up from a place apart.
the 40-meter-wide dome frames the sky through a circular opening above
Turrell’s lighting shifts around the room during Open Sky, Color Shift and Twilight sessions
