Artist Refik Anadol, cofounder of Refik Anadol Studio, announces the opening of DATALAND, a new museum for data designed from the ground up in collaboration with architect Frank Gehry at The Grand LA. The project aims to create an architectural space inherently designed for immersive, AI-generated, and constantly evolving art, moving beyond the need to retrofit traditional museum structures like the white cube.
Major international museum projects are nearing completion for 2026, signaling a period of significant institutional expansion despite global economic and political pressures. Key highlights include the long-awaited Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, designed by Frank Gehry, which will finally open its doors on Saadiyat Island after two decades of planning. Meanwhile, Los Angeles is preparing for two major debuts: George Lucas’s $1 billion Lucas Museum of Narrative Art and Refik Anadol’s Dataland, a dedicated space for AI-driven digital art.
Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç will open DATALAND, a museum dedicated to AI art, in Los Angeles on June 20, 2026. Located in the Grand LA complex designed by Frank Gehry, the 25,000-square-foot venue will feature five gallery spaces plus 10,000 square feet for supporting technology. Its inaugural exhibition, "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," created by Refik Anadol Studio, uses AI trained on ecological datasets to generate sensory experiences, including a version of Anadol's Infinity Room with a 1987 recording of an extinct Hawaiian bird and AI-generated scents. Membership starts at $350 per year.
Refik Anadol's Dataland, billed as the world's first A.I. art museum, will open on June 20 in Los Angeles after more than two and a half years of planning. Founded by Anadol and his partner Efsun Erkiliç, the museum is housed inside the Frank Gehry-designed Grand L.A. complex and features five galleries. Its debut exhibition, "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," uses ecological data processed through Anadol's Large Nature Model to create digital sculptures simulating possible rainforests. The museum, designed by Gensler, dedicates nearly a third of its 35,000 square feet to operational hardware and runs on 87 percent carbon-free energy.
LACMA, Lucas Museum, Dataland… Los Angeles engagée dans une folle course à la culture
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has opened its new David Geffen Galleries building, a massive, controversial structure designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor. The $835 million project, funded in part by philanthropist David Geffen, spans Wilshire Boulevard and replaces four older modernist pavilions, sparking a decade-long debate over its design, cost, and the loss of the previous buildings.
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, will open in Los Angeles on 22 September with 18 inaugural exhibitions featuring over 1,200 objects. Curated by Lucas himself, the shows span media like photography, architecture, and cinema, as well as genres such as manga, anime, comics, and children's stories. Six solo exhibitions will highlight American artists including Thomas Hart Benton, Frank Frazetta, and Norman Rockwell. The museum's collection now exceeds 40,000 works, including the Separate Cinema Archive and Lucas Archives of film memorabilia.
New York City will gain a major new cultural venue in 2026 called Canyon, a 18,000-square-foot hub on the Lower East Side dedicated to durational, time-based art forms such as video, sound, and performance. Founded by philanthropist and collector Robert Rosenkranz, the space is designed by New Affiliates Architecture and will feature state-of-the-art galleries, a 300-seat performance hall, and a skylit piazza with food and beverage options. Joe Thompson, founding director of MASS MoCA, will serve as the venue's director. Canyon has already appointed conservator Cass Fino-Radin as director of art and technology and curator Sam Ozer as curator-at-large, with partners including Rhizome, Electronic Arts Intermix, and the Archive of Contemporary Music. Its inaugural exhibitions will include a major retrospective of Japanese new media artist Ryoji Ikeda and a show titled "Worldbuilding" curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist.
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) will host the 2025 Museums of Tomorrow Roundtable (MTR) from May 11-17, bringing together 14 global museum leaders and technology firms including Adobe, Anthropic, Bloomberg, and Salesforce. Participants include directors such as Marion Ackermann (Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz), Stephanie Rosenthal (Guggenheim Abu Dhabi), Eike Schmidt (Museo di Capodimonte), Mami Kataoka (Mori Art Museum), and others, alongside Bay Area museum heads and AI artist Refik Anadol, who will speak in a free public program at the de Young Museum. The forum aims to bridge the museum and technology communities, exploring how advanced technologies can enrich operations and visitor experiences while supporting artists working with technology.
Los Angeles is set for a major year in visual arts in 2026, with 22 notable exhibitions and events planned across the city. Highlights include the opening of the world’s first AI arts museum (Dataland), the long-awaited Lucas Museum, Yoko Ono’s first solo show in L.A., and the LA Art Show featuring Sylvester Stallone’s abstract works and a new Latin American Pavilion. Other exhibitions include a Selena retrospective at the Grammy Museum and a video art survey at the historic Variety Arts Theater.
The article reports three major developments in the global art world. Saudi Arabia's Diriyah Company has awarded a $490 million contract for a new flagship space of the Saudi Arabia Museum of Contemporary Art (SAMoCA) in Diriyah, designed by Godwin Austen Johnson. The Sharjah Art Foundation has announced details for Sharjah Biennial 17 (SB17), titled "What remains, sits restive," curated by Angela Harutyunyan and Paula Nascimento, featuring 109 artists and set to open in 2027. Additionally, DATALAND, a new AI art museum founded by Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç, will open on June 20 in Los Angeles, showcasing digital and immersive artworks.
Los Angeles is entering a transformative period of cultural expansion, marked by nearly $3 billion in new museum construction and institutional growth. Key projects include the imminent opening of Peter Zumthor’s $835 million expansion of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the debut of Refik Anadol’s AI-focused Dataland, and the long-awaited opening of George Lucas’s $1 billion Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. These developments, alongside expansions at The Broad and The Huntington, are timed to solidify the city's infrastructure ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Los Angeles is expanding its cultural offerings with several new and renovated art institutions. The Museum of AI Arts, called Dataland, is set to open this spring at the Grand L.A. complex, created by artist Refik Anadol. It claims to be the world's first museum dedicated to AI art, featuring immersive installations like an Infinity Room with AI-generated scents. Meanwhile, the Natural History Museum completed a $75 million renovation in 2024, adding a 60,000-square-foot wing and displaying a unique green-boned dinosaur named Gnatalie, along with Barbara Carrasco's previously censored mural. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is opening the David Geffen Galleries on May 4, a 110,000-square-foot space for its permanent collection.
DATALAND, the world's first museum of AI arts co-founded by artist Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç, will open to the public on June 20, 2026, in downtown Los Angeles. Located in the Frank Gehry-designed building The Grand LA within the Grand Avenue Cultural District, the 35,000-square-foot venue will debut with the inaugural exhibition "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," an immersive 360-degree experience based on millions of images and sounds of nature. The custom AI model powering the exhibition was trained on data collected from 16 rainforests worldwide, with data partnerships established with the Smithsonian, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Getty, iNaturalist, and the Natural History Museum in London.
Dataland, the world's first museum dedicated to generative AI art, will open in Los Angeles on June 20. Founded by media artist Refik Anadol and his wife Efsun Erkılıç, the museum is located in the Grand LA cultural complex alongside The Broad, MOCA, and Walt Disney Concert Hall. Spanning 3,250 square meters, it debuts with the exhibition "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," featuring a machine-generated rainforest created by Anadol's proprietary Large Nature Model, trained on data from the Smithsonian Institution, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and the Natural History Museum in London.
Dataland, billed as the world's first museum dedicated to AI-generated art, will open June 20 at The Grand LA in downtown Los Angeles, founded by Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç. Its inaugural exhibition, 'Machine Dreams: Rainforest,' uses vast environmental datasets to create multi-sensory AI interpretations of nature. In other news, Tuan Andrew Nguyen's 27-foot-tall sandstone Buddha sculpture has been installed on New York's High Line Plinth; Chanel is launching its first-ever Coco Beach pop-up in Shanghai; Kengo Kuma collaborated with Jaipur Rugs on a carpet collection unveiled at Milan Design Week; and Pittsburgh's new $31 million Arts Landing civic space opened in the Cultural District.
Dataland, billed as the world's first museum dedicated to AI art, is set to open on June 20 in Los Angeles at The Grand LA, a Frank Gehry-designed complex. Co-founded by Turkish-American artist Refik Anadol, the 35,000-square-foot privately-funded museum will feature five immersive galleries. Its inaugural exhibition, *Machine Dreams: Rainforest*, is an audiovisual experience based on millions of images and sounds of nature, inspired by a visit Anadol and co-founder Efsun Erkılıç made to the Amazon rainforest. Anadol is known for his generative AI piece at MoMA in 2022 and a projection on the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
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Dataland, billed as the world's first museum dedicated to A.I.-generated art, will open on June 20 in downtown Los Angeles. Founded by digital artists Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkiliç, the 35,000-square-foot museum is located in the Grand LA complex designed by Frank Gehry. Its inaugural exhibition, "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," features immersive, multisensory installations powered by an open-access A.I. model called the Large Nature Model, trained on millions of nature images. The exhibition includes soundscapes incorporating oral histories of the Yawanawá people and the last recorded call of the extinct Kaua‘i ‘ō‘ō bird.
Dataland, the world's first museum dedicated to AI arts, will open on June 20 in downtown Los Angeles. Co-founded by new media artists Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç, the 35,000-square-foot museum anchors the $1-billion Frank Gehry-designed Grand LA complex. Its inaugural exhibition, "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," created by Refik Anadol Studio, uses vast data sets from partners including the Smithsonian and London's Natural History Museum to immerse visitors in a machine-generated sensory experience of the Amazon rainforest. The museum features five immersive galleries, a 30-foot ceiling, and is powered by an open-access AI model called the Large Nature Model, which runs on Google Cloud servers using 87% carbon-free energy.
Refik Anadol Studio will open DATALAND, the world's first Museum of AI Arts, on June 20, 2026, at The Grand LA in downtown Los Angeles. The 2,320-square-meter institution will feature five galleries, including the Infinity Room, and launch with the inaugural exhibition "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," running through January 31, 2027. The museum integrates AI systems into its architecture, powered by the studio's Large Nature Model trained on ecological data from the Smithsonian and Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
A roundup of major U.S. museum openings and expansions scheduled for 2026 highlights several high-profile projects across the country. These include the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, the Hip Hop Museum in New York City, and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles. Additionally, the Edward W. Kane & Martha J. Wallace Center for Black History opens in Newport, Rhode Island, in June; the San Mateo County History Museum in Redwood City, California, completes a $23.5 million expansion in the fall; and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland finishes a $175 million expansion adding 50,000 square feet.
In the first episode of 2026, Ben Luke, Jane Morris, and Gareth Harris preview the year's major art events, including museum openings, biennials, and exhibitions. Highlights include the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, V&A East, and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, along with the Venice Biennale, Whitney Biennial, and shows dedicated to artists like Gainsborough, Raphael, Zurbarán, and Matisse.
A trio of major museum openings is expected in Los Angeles in 2026: the expansion of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) with its new David Geffen Galleries designed by Peter Zumthor opening in April; the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, founded by filmmaker George Lucas and designed by Ma Yansong, opening on 22 September; and the digital artist Refik Anadol's Dataland, the first museum devoted to AI-generated art, opening in spring. Additionally, the Victoria and Albert Museum opens V&A East in London on 18 April, and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, opens an expansion on 6 June.
Dataland, the world's first museum dedicated to AI arts, will open to the public on June 20 at The Grand LA complex in Los Angeles. Designed by Gensler, the museum's inaugural exhibition, 'Machine Dreams: Rainforest' by Refik Anadol Studio, runs through January 31, 2027, and uses a Large Nature Model (LNM) processing ecological and biofeedback data in real time to create an immersive, evolving sensory experience.
Los Angeles will open DATALAND, the world's first Museum of AI Arts, on June 20, 2026. Co-founded by Refik Anadol and Efsun Erkılıç, the 35,000-square-foot museum is located in Frank Gehry's Grand LA complex within the Grand Avenue Cultural District. Its inaugural exhibition, "Machine Dreams: Rainforest," runs through January 31, 2027, and features the Large Nature Model—the first open-source generative AI model dedicated to nature. The exhibition uses real-time audience biofeedback and ecological datasets to create a shifting digital rainforest, including an Infinity Room that plays the extinct Kauaʻi ʻŌʻō bird's call. Pioneer Memberships are now on sale, offering exclusive pre-opening access and a generative print.
Media artist Refik Anadol has announced that Dataland, the world's first museum of AI arts, will open in spring 2026 at the Frank Gehry-designed Grand L.A. complex in downtown Los Angeles, delayed from its original 2025 schedule. The museum spans 25,000 square feet and includes five galleries; a sneak peek was released of the Infinity Room, an immersive multisensory space featuring swirling colors, AI-generated scents, and a proprietary AI model called the Large Nature Model. The Infinity Room concept originated in 2014 at UCLA and has since toured 35 cities, attracting over 10 million visitors.
DATALAND, the world's first museum dedicated to AI art, has announced it will open in spring 2026 at the Grand L.A. complex in Downtown Los Angeles, a delay from its original 2025 target. Founded by artist Refik Anadol and his wife Efsun Erkılıç, the 25,000-square-foot venue will feature five galleries, including an Infinity Room that incorporates AI-generated scents drawn from the studio's Large Nature Model, trained on data from 16 rainforests. DATALAND will also partner with Google Arts & Culture for an artist residency program, selecting three artists for six-month collaborations culminating in public displays.