ARoS – an international art and experience venue

When ARoS opened on 7 April 2004, expectations ran high: The museum was hoping for 150,000 visitors for the remainder of the year. As it was, more than double this number – 342,000 – streamed through the doors to see Denmark’s newest art museum. An ambitious success was well and truly in the making.

ARoS’s vision is to be a dynamic, international art museum which brings the outside world to Aarhus, and the public has demonstrated its appreciation of this vision.

Visitors have continued to flock to the museum to see exhibitions with an international flavour such as POP Clas-sics, Olafur Eliasson – Minding the World, Bill Viola VISIONS and Fairy Tales Forever, exhibi-tions that have been organised in collaboration with, for example, the Guggenheim Museums.

Cube with cut-through section

The architecture of the building is also of international standing, and was created by the Aarhus firm of architects Schmidt, Hammer & Lassen following a competition which saw 110 entries from firms around the world.

ARoS is cube-shaped, measuring 52 times 52 metres and almost 50 metres high. The cube is sliced through by a ‘museum street’, to which the public has access without paying an admission charge. Forming a logistical pivot, a spiral staircase punctuates the mid-point of the ‘street’ and, on payment of an entrance fee, affords full access to the various galleries and other facilities in the building.

Spectacular

ARoS is a spectacular gallery of pictures and experiences for all ages. It is a building where the curious can both enjoy and be challenged by the special exhibitions, but also by ARoS’s comprehensive collection of 1,100 paintings, 400 sculptures and installations, 200 art videos and more than 7,000 drawings, photographs and graphics from 1770 until the present day. The museum has Denmark’s finest collection of Danish modernism from the early 20th century, and the world’s largest collection of Per Kierkeby pieces in addition to works by outstanding international contemporary artists such as Bill Viola, Pipilotti Rist, Tony Oursler, James Turrell, Miwa Yanagi, Carsten Höller, Gilbert & George and, not least, Ron Mueck, who has created the museum’s landmark work Boy.

The special exhibition area in the basement, The 9 Spaces, is reserved and specially equipped for presenting international light, video and installation art. The most recent addition here is a piece by the Swiss, world-renowned artist Pipilotti Rist.

…and much more

ARoS Junior consists of a gallery and a workshop for inquisitive children and young people who want to learn more about art in unconventional and hands-on ways.

The ARoS shop sells a wide selection of Danish and international design as well as books about art, design and architecture. Finally, visitors can enjoy delicious cuisine in the ART restaurant and ART Café on the top and street level floors respectively, or from the roof admire the panoramic views across the city and bay.