Artist James Turrell, known for his visionary work exploring light’s influence on consciousness and perception, is preparing to unveil the biggest installment in his Skyspace public-art series shown yet in a museum context.
“As Seen Below – The Dome,” described as a “monumental work that invites you to look up at the sky and into yourself,” will open in June 2026 at the ARoS Aarhus Art Museum in Aarhus, Denmark, just in time for the summer solstice. The installation features a vast domed hall where Turrell’s carefully calibrated light bathes visitors in shifting colors throughout the day as they peer upward toward the sky through an opening that merges art and the natural world, blurring the boundary between natural and artificial light.
“With ‘As Seen Below’ I shape the very experience of seeing, rather than simply delivering an image,” the California artist said in a statement. “The architecture brings the sky close, so you recognize that the very act of looking is the work itself.”
Turrell, 82, has been creating Skyspaces since the 1970s. These famous architectural installations vary in size and shape — some are freestanding buildings, while others are integrated into museums — but all incorporate sky-framing ceiling apertures that make the heavens seem almost within reach. Skyspaces have appeared around the world, including at museums, art centers and other facilities in the U.S., Austria, England, Germany, Japan, Mexico and Spain. During the pandemic, a family of hoteliers and art collectors commissioned a Skyspace for a family retreat in Uruguay, and last year, a Quaker school in Manhattan unveiled its own Skyscape by the internationally acclaimed artist, himself a practicing Quaker.
Meditation On Our Sky, Planet
At the ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, “As Seen Below” measures about 53 feet tall by 131 feet in diameter. Visitors enter the domed space through a large, light-filled underground corridor and can sit on benches encircling the room as they absorb the changing colors and seasons, which “remind us of our relationship with nature, the sky and our common planet,” the museum says.
Light sessions at sunrise and sunset promise to be especially dramatic.
ARoS will present the Turrell Skyspace as a culmination of an ambitious transformation, 10 years in the making, dubbed The Next Level. The expansion also includes a subterranean exhibition space called Salling Gallery, which opened in June. A new outdoor exhibition space is slated to open next year.
“We are proud that our museum will be home to James Turrell’s most significant Skyspace to date, a unique work that invites the audience to slow down, lift their gaze and experience light, time and space in deeply moving ways,” museum director Rebecca Matthews said in a statement.
Turrell earned his pilot’s license at age 16, and while in flight, became fascinated with how dramatically light and color in the sky can shift according to altitude, time of day and weather patterns. He has described flying as a meditative experience, much like the one observers often report when viewing his Skyspaces.