Danish museum to acquire Olafur Eliasson's glowing yellow sphere

ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, in eastern Denmark, will acquire Presence (2025), a large glowing yellow sphere by the artist Olafur Eliasson. The Art Newspaper reported the news on 10 November 2026. The purchase is the first step in a new long-term partnership between the museum and Eliasson, who is Danish-Icelandic.

The work is a vast sphere that glows yellow and seems to hover in space. To acquire a work means the museum will own it and keep it in its collection, rather than borrow it for a show.

The partnership is called Shared Futures. It includes Thin Ice, a solo exhibition of Eliasson's work that is due to open in autumn 2027. It also includes a new version of his Waterfall (2004), built to suit the site, which will be installed on ARoS's Art Square from 9 October 2027.

Studio Olafur Eliasson, the artist's own studio, will set up a library of books about his artistic work at ARoS. The library will be open to the public. The partnership also creates a postdoctoral research post, a paid position for a researcher who already holds a doctorate, run in collaboration with Aarhus University.

ARoS already has a work by Eliasson on show. Your Rainbow Panorama (2011) is a walkway on the museum's roof, with glass panels that tint the view in every colour of the rainbow. Visitors can walk around the top of the building and look out over Aarhus through it.

The museum is led by its director, Rebecca Matthews, who has held the post since 2022. The partnership and the new sphere will sit alongside the museum's existing programme, with the exhibition and the outdoor installation arriving over the next year.