Funding and political backing for the expansion are in place

The expansion project, ‘The Next Level’, has financial and political backing and is now ready to move into the next phase.

It is hard to imagine ARoS without ‘Your Rainbow Panorama’ at the top. In future, it will also be hard to imagine ARoS without ‘The Dome’. With political backing and generous donations from the Herman Salling Foundation and the New Carlsberg Foundation, work can continue on this ambitious construction project and the unique artwork by the world-renowned artist James Turrell. 


James Turrell himself says of his art: “Light is not so much something that reveals, as it is itself the revelation.”

On *The Next Level*, he says: “This project is one of the main pieces in my career. It’s highly important. Art for the soul is needed now more than ever.”

“We have worked hard to realise this ambitious extension of the museum, which we call The Next Level, and we are therefore delighted with the support the project is receiving, both financially and politically,” says museum director Erlend G. Høyersten, ARoS.

- In record time, ARoS has established itself as a world-class art museum and, with *Your Rainbow Panorama* at its centre, also as an iconic landmark for Aarhus, combining broad appeal with artistic impact. With the realisation of James Turrell’s spectacular The Dome, ARoS is taking both the museum and the city to “The Next Level” and firmly underlining Aarhus’s status as a fantastic city of culture, says Mayor Jacob Bundsgaard.

- The whole of Aarhus is being taken to a new and higher level with ‘The Next Level’. It will be a unique attraction that establishes Aarhus in the international premier league when it comes to culture. ‘The Next Level’ will be the centrepiece of a new cultural urban space that the city’s residents and visitors will enjoy on a daily basis for generations to come, says Rabih Azad-Ahmad, Councillor for Culture and Citizen Services.

- “We at the New Carlsberg Foundation are delighted to be helping to ensure that The Next Level becomes a reality. Expanding the urban and museum landscape with James Turrell’s underground cathedral is both visionary and courageous,” says Christine Buhl Andersen, Chair of the New Carlsberg Foundation.

- Culture is an important part of Aarhus. ARoS is one of the many cultural institutions that inspire and delight the city’s residents and visitors. Culture and art bring us together as human beings and enrich our everyday lives. At the Salling Foundations, we are keen to help support this groundbreaking and spectacular project, says Jens Bjerg Sørensen, Chair of the Board of the Herman Salling Foundation.

New underground gallery, the artwork ‘The Dome’ and ‘The Annual ARoS Pavilion’

‘The Next Level’, developed in collaboration with Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, comprises several elements: an extension project consisting of a 1,000-square-metre underground exhibition gallery and the gigantic artwork ‘The Dome’ by James Turrell, which, with its 15-metre ceiling height, a diameter of 40 metres and a view of the infinite sky, will offer an internationally unique art experience characterised by great spiritual sensitivity. The extension will be connected to the existing building with an entrance from level 3.

Another element included in the next phase of the project is The Annual ARoS Pavilion, which will be situated between the museum and The Dome. The plan is for a new temporary pavilion to be built each year by some of the world’s most innovative architects. The Annual ARoS Pavilion will serve as a temporary, recurring venue for various forms of social interaction, talks, concerts, new exhibitions and performances. It will create opportunities for exciting new collaborations across the city’s cultural institutions, organisations and grassroots groups. At the same time, it will create opportunities for a new urban space around the museum and the surrounding institutions.

About James Turrell

Since the 1960s, the American artist James Turrell (b. 1943) has been working with light, colour and spatial installations. He is today the world’s leading artist in his field and has created permanent installations in 26 countries. Turrell trained as a psychologist and has studied mathematics, geology and astronomy. A common feature of his works is that they envelop the audience through effects of light and colour controlled by the artist.

James Turrell’s best-known work is Roden Crater – an extinct volcano in the Arizona desert, which constitutes the world’s largest work of art. He purchased the 400,000-year-old, three-kilometre-wide crater in 1979, and it has since become a lifelong art project. Here, he is building a vast observatory where one can study the changing qualities of light in the sky throughout the day. Turrell is also known for his ‘Sky Spaces’, the first of which was created in 1975. Turrell’s often vibrantly coloured spatial installations are reminiscent of three-dimensional light paintings, in which he, like a modern Michelangelo, connects the earthly with the heavenly, and the body and emotion with the mind and thought.

Finances

The total cost of the extension project is estimated at just under 200 million kroner, of which the Herman Salling Foundation has donated 80 million kroner, the New Carlsberg Foundation 40 million kroner, and an anonymous donor 10 million kroner. The remainder is being financed jointly by Aarhus City Council and ARoS.

The construction is being carried out in collaboration with Aarhus City Council’s Department of Culture and Citizen Services.

The Next Level is expected to open in 2025.

Press photos can be downloaded free of charge via Dropbox, subject to credit being given.

For further information, please contact:

ARoS Press and Communications
presse@aros.dk
+45 61904942