James Turrell marks 50 years of Skyspaces with a 40-meter dome in Denmark
Fifty years into one of contemporary art’s most singular obsessions, James Turrell has built his largest Skyspace yet, and buried it underground. As Seen Below, now open at ARoS Aarhus Art Museum in Denmark, marks the 100th entry in the artist’s landmark series and inaugurates the museum’s new Schmidt Hammer Lassen-designed expansion. At 16 meters tall and 40 meters wide, the structure sits beneath a grassy mound in the museum’s park, entered through a corridor that slowly prepares the body for what the eyes are about to encounter. Inside, over 1,100 LEDs shift the color of the air itself, altering perception of the circular patch of sky visible through the dome’s aperture overhead. For this iteration, Turrell drew from the Northern Lights, translating their elusive chromatic drift into surreal sensory environments that change with sunrise and sunset.
Hockney, Richter, Picasso led Art Basel Switzerland 2026
Art Basel Switzerland 2026 closed with a $35 million Picasso topping sales at the six-day fair. Le peintre et son modèle dans un paysage, sold by Hauser & Wirth, led a market that also saw Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (940-7) go for $20 million and David Hockney’s Studio Interior #2 sell for $8.5 million. The fair drew 290 galleries from 43 countries and more than 270 museum and foundation representatives.
MIT Museum to receive the world’s largest I.M. Pei archive
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is set to become the single largest repository of I. M. Pei’s work in the world. Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, the firm Pei co-founded in 1955, has gifted MIT Museum an extraordinary archive spanning 60 projects across the architect’s career, including 1,500 rolls of architectural drawings, 50 architectural models, and 1,000 linear feet of manuscripts. The collection surpasses even the holdings of the Library of Congress. Among the most significant holdings are never-before-seen drawings and documents related to two of Pei’s most consequential commissions: the Louvre Pyramid in Paris and Dallas City Hall.
Raf’s heads to Paris, Boston, and London in a new Raffles residency series
Raffles Hotels & Resorts has partnered with Raf’s, founded by sisters Jennifer and Nicole Vitagliano with executive chef Mary Attea, for a series of international pop-up residencies beginning this week at Le Bar Long inside Le Royal Monceau Raffles Paris, running through Thursday during Paris Men’s Fashion Week. The residency is the first of three. Following Paris, the concept travels to Raffles Boston from July 15–17, before concluding at Raffles London at The OWO during London Fashion Week in September, where Attea will collaborate with chef Mauro Colagreco in a four-hands dinner.
Connie H. Choi is appointed Chief Curator at the Barnes Foundation
The Barnes Foundation has named Connie H. Choi its first Vice President for Art and Education & Gund Family Chief Curator, merging the institution’s curatorial and educational functions under a single leader for the first time. Choi joins the Philadelphia institution following nearly a decade at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she most recently served as Curator and helped open the museum’s long-awaited new building in November 2025.
Today’s attractive distractions:
Pomellato’s new high jewelry collection leans into vibrant colors and craftsmanship.
Lego goes retro with a $229 functional pinball machine.
Coco Gauff will compete at Wimbledon in a New Balance and Miu Miu collection.
St. Regis continues its Latin America expansion with a Costa Mujeres resort.
