Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel is coming to London this summer

You could book flights to Rome and queue for hours to crane your neck at the ceiling…or you could get the tube to Marble Arch on 10 July and let Michelangelo come to you.

Frameless, London’s largest immersive art experience, is adding a new permanent artwork to its collection this summer: a full-scale immersive interpretation of the Sistine Chapel frescoes, wrapping across the ceiling, floor and all four walls of the gallery. The Creation of Adam, The Separation of Light from Darkness, God Creating the Sun, Moon and Vegetation, all of it animated in 3D with an original score, at a scale that makes the Vatican version feel almost modest.

The clever part is what it reveals rather than just reproduces. Details that are genuinely difficult to see from the floor of the actual chapel get pulled forward here, animated figures drawing your eye to things you’d miss entirely on a package tour. There’s also an animated Michelangelo himself, shown gazing up at his own work from the scaffolding he designed to make it possible. It’s a cool little detail that helps the exhibition pop.

Standing inside the immersive Frameless Sistine Chapel experience

The new artwork joins a collection of 43 masterpieces spanning Monet, Van Gogh, Dalí, Canaletto and Rembrandt, all under one roof. The Sistine Chapel piece opens at Frameless Lates on Friday 10 July, with daytime viewing from Saturday 11 July. The experience also currently includes Stories: Brought to Life, a National Portrait Gallery residency featuring Queen Elizabeth II, Amy Winehouse and Malala Yousafzai among others, running until August.

Worth knowing: tickets are currently discounted under the Government’s Summer Savings scheme, which has reduced VAT on exhibition entry from 20% to 5% until 1 September.

The LxL take: If you haven’t been to Frameless yet, this is the nudge you needed. The Sistine Chapel addition is the most ambitious thing they’ve done, and the VAT reduction makes now the best time to go.