Meow Wolf supercharged the way we experience art. Now LA is joining the wild ride
LOS ANGELES — A Meow Wolf exhibition is designed as a dream space, a walk-through floor-to-ceiling collection of psychedelic art with a sci-fi bent and an anything-goes, punk rock spirit.
Apples that melodically squeal when squeezed? One can find those in "Omega Mart," Meow Wolf's Las Vegas exhibition. A video game that grapples with an uncompromising, impossible-to-please parent? Head to "The Real Unreal" outside Dallas. A neon-soaked forest in a suburban backyard? That originated in Meow Wolf's Santa Fe, New Mexico, home.
"We are undefinable in so many ways, and it makes people think, 'It's just entertainment,'" says Meow Wolf curator Han Santana-Sayles, 31, sitting in her newly rented Pasadena home. "But I truly believe we are a wild art experiment."
Meow Wolf spaces, of which there are currently four open, are warped visions of reality, designed to get guests to see the world, and hopefully themselves, differently. They're spots where the familiar — think a grocery store or a home — is used as an entry point to otherworldly, maximalist art that's at once a fantastical twist on nature and a deep dive into why-are-we-here philosophies.
So what happens when Meow Wolf decides that its next place of expansion is the home of American make-believe?
Meow Wolf is coming to Los Angeles, and it aims to turn the city's most ritualistic experience — that is, the act of going to the movies — into an interactive, art-driven wonderland.
The Santa Fe-based art collective-turned-capitalistic enterprise — leaders of the so-called "experience economy" — is in the closing round of negotiations that will bring a Meow Wolf exhibition to
