Lifestyle
Meow Wolf supercharged the way we experience art. Is L.A. ready for the wild ride?
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, N.M., 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 our 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 West Los Angeles, with an opening targeted for 2026. Meow Wolf will be taking over a vacant movie theater complex and intends to fully embrace the spot’s cinematic roots. Meow Wolf’s move into its largest market yet is intended as a statement piece, a declaration that weirdness and art-focused ventures still have a place in an immersive economy that’s been racked by closures and layoffs, Meow Wolf included.
“A movie theater is representative of the history of L.A., a city that has been known for over 100 years with Hollywood and moviemaking,” says Meow Wolf Chief Executive Jose Tolosa. “I think the location we picked is one of the components that embodies the richness and the history of the city, and the artistry of the city.”
Anticipate multiple rooms of narrative-based art that strive to test perceptions, grappling with not only the stories we tell one another but why we tell them, says co-founder Sean Di Ianni, 39, who is overseeing the L.A. project.
If Disney and Universal theme parks ask us to “ride the movies,” Meow Wolf will be challenging guests to question their communal power, exploring, via hallucinatory art, the minds of those who make them, sell them and love them. Expect it all to be delivered with hints of mysticism, as Meow Wolf artists will dabble in themes of ritual and religion.
Like past Meow Wolf exhibitions, a significant number of installations will come from the local art community. Santana-Sayles, a Murrieta native who now resides a few blocks from where her grandmother once lived, will lead the outreach into L.A.’s art world, a process that is in its infancy. A Meow Wolf exhibition is a mix of elaborately designed environments and commissioned works from artists who reside in the host city.
“I’m looking for a super broad range,” she says. “I want to include people who do wild projection mapping. But I also want to find people who do just pastels — really, really well. Or they’re painters. Or they draw. They’ve homed in on this one thing. We don’t want it to read as a theme park. We’re a contemporary arts platform.”
I want to include people who do wild projection mapping. But I also want to find people who do just pastels — really, really well. Or they’re painters. Or they draw.
— Meow Wolf curator Han Santana-Sayles
And yet the company’s rise from experimental art collective in 2008 to an “experience economy” corporation has been meteoric, attracting creative talent from theme park giants such as the Walt Disney Co. and NBCUniversal. It has been embraced by the likes of the Themed Entertainment Assn., and Meow Wolf’s play-focused, active approach has shifted the industry, encouraging environments with multiple access points that increasingly push guests to lean in and participate.
Meow Wolf’s roots in underground art and its penchant for flirting with popular culture have resulted in a specific kind of tension. Meow Wolf is a corporation, but one that staunchly believes in original intellectual property. Meow Wolf stands by the power of the individual creator, having long supported independent muralists, game designers or sculpture artists, but it also traffics in interconnected storylines that require the sort of environmental storytelling defined by Disney’s theme parks.
Its ambitions are high art, but it’s also extremely populist. And that says nothing of Meow Wolf’s outspoken penchant for progressive politics. Melding all of this with a capitalistic enterprise could seem like a contradiction, but it also feels uniquely fit for Los Angeles.
“I love the chaoticness of it,” Santana-Sayles says of Los Angeles. “I love that yesterday I was on the street and someone was flipping a sign, really incredibly. He had a Walkman on and was doing a dancing Jesus sign movement. On the other corner was a juggler, a Cirque du Soleil-qualified juggler. Then on the other side of the street was a kid skateboarding with a dog under his arm.
“It’s an active, creative, chaotic mix of things,” she says. “It feels like art.”
The Los Angeles announcement arrives at what has become a reflection point for the immersive community.
Meow Wolf, along with long-running New York-based theatrical production “Sleep No More,” defined the immersive space. Since 2016, when the once-scrappy Meow Wolf art collective opened Santa Fe’s “House of Eternal Return,” the company has welcomed about 10 million visitors across its four venues. Yet in April Meow Wolf announced it would cut 165 employees; exhibitions in Denver and Las Vegas were heavily affected. “Sleep No More,” meanwhile, which has been running since 2011, will end this year.
The two spawned an industry of interactive, social media-primed spaces, one that saw the rise and fall of everything from projection-based exhibitions such as “Immersive Van Gogh” to Lost Spirits, a heavily themed Las Vegas rum distillery with circus trappings, which just shuttered. The Walt Disney Co. even got in on the action via the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, a two-day live-action role-playing game that utilized a mobile phone app to drive gameplay with real-life actors and sets. It lasted about a year.
Meow Wolf’s Tolosa pins the recent layoffs on two factors. One, he says, the company has become better at understanding its staffing needs, having opened a Denver exhibition with more than 300 employees. Last year’s “The Real Unreal” in Grapevine, Texas, in contrast, launched with a staff of around 100. He also notes that attendance tends to peak from a period of opening to around 18 months after, necessitating that the company adjust its models.
“We remain committed to a growth path,” Tolosa says. “Not only in L.A. but beyond. We’re already looking into other cities.” Tolosa adds that Meow Wolf is continuing to build an app that will connect all of its exhibitions, and is exploring other mediums such as gaming.
Meow Wolf, says Noah Nelson, founder of immersive entertainment site No Proscenium and its accompanying conference, is still one of the most recognizable names in the sector. While the layoffs raised eyebrows, the pledge to future exhibitions is an argument that the audience isn’t eroding.
“Meow Wolf represents the paradox,” Nelson says.
“It was born from a wild artist collective that created these family-friendly psychedelic sandboxes,” he says. “It morphed into a business that became increasingly a business and is still trying to hold onto that family-friendly psychedelic sandbox energy. It’s still trying to maintain its soul. That’s a tightrope that is very hard to walk, and it has at times been downright scary to watch them walk it. The upside is that they’re still walking it.”
Meow Wolf represents the paradox. It was born from a wild artist collective that created these family-friendly psychedelic sandboxes. It morphed into a business that became increasingly a business and is still trying to hold onto that family-friendly psychedelic sandbox energy.
— Noah Nelson, founder of immersive entertainment site No Proscenium
Di Ianni helped grow Meow Wolf from an artist community into a corporation.
“I’ve been on all sides of this,” Di Ianni says. “I’ve created things. I helped organize things. I helped form the business. I’ve conducted layoffs myself. I’ve felt the pain, the struggle, the beauty and the mystery and magic in all different ways. It’s still happening. We’re still experiencing it. People, sometimes people who weren’t around for it, think of the early days as some utopian fantasy. It wasn’t that. It was a chaotic, anarchic mess.
“I guess what I’m saying,” he says, “is it’s always been a struggle.”
Di Ianni and Santana-Sayles hope Los Angeles will be a point of healing. After all, it just may be Meow Wolf’s most personal artistic statement yet.
The large thematic touchpoints for what would become Meow Wolf’s L.A. space were sketched out about two years ago. Many of them originated with Matt King, whom Di Ianni credits for leading a significant portion of Meow Wolf’s philosophical bent. King died by suicide in July 2022.
While Di Ianni is keeping much of the narrative a secret, he said the team envisioned as its setting “a world at a distant crossroads” in the midst of some sort of ritual. “What if this place we’re creating has some event that occurs, and people are drawn to this event the way people are drawn to a panda being born at a zoo?” Di Ianni says.
Santana-Sayles digs deeper.
She was King’s fiancée at the time of his death, and at various points a conversation with her delves into a discussion on how to process grief. An art piece of King’s, a woven portrait of flowers, sits in her living room waiting to be hung. After his death, she says, she made the decision to return to L.A. to be closer to her family. That Meow Wolf would center its next project here became a fortunate coincidence.
“It’s so hard to be split from people,” she says of the last two years of her life. “They become you, and you become them.”
She takes comfort in being able to bring one of King’s final Meow Wolf ideas to fruition, and she and Di Ianni speak of wanting to protect what King was envisioning. “It’ll be harder for me to work on a Meow Wolf that he had nothing to do with,” Santana-Sayles says. “That won’t be far off. It’s the project after this. That will be way more challenging for me. I feel like I still get to hold his hand.”
When discussing some of the themes for the Los Angeles exhibition, she heads to her bookshelf and digs out a stack of King’s books, specifically ones he was reading in the last year of his life. King, she says, was becoming heavily fascinated with theories that interwove astrology and the Bible.
“He would come to dinners and say, ‘I’m so excited to tell you that this chapter of the Bible is actually parallel to this incredible spring equinox and the equinox is a metaphor for the way Moses parted the sea,’” she says. “I thought Matt, frankly, was sometimes extremely discerning about his sources and sometimes not at all. He would flip between different texts — historic texts, and then things that were on the verge of conspiracy theory. He just wanted to absorb.
“This exhibit,” Santana-Sayles says, “I do think, in the funniest way, grapples with big mystical and religious questions. Not overtly, but in a way people will read themselves into. I think there’s a lot to be explored there.”
Santana-Sayles and her team will have a significant say in how. It’s early days but she’s in the midst of working with consultants to create demographic surveys of Los Angeles, striving to ensure the exhibit will fully represent the diversity of the region. As a SoCal native from a Mexican American family, Santana-Sayles says, “I would be dishonored” if the exhibit failed in its mission to capture the breadth of the L.A. population. A cultural engagement specialist has been hired for outreach to Indigenous artist groups.
“It’s really important to make that intentional,” she says. “I’m not just going out and saying, ‘They have art I like. I’m going to bring them in.’ It’s a combination. Yes, they’re an amazing artist, and they have a really important story for this region.”
Santana-Sayles is asked what makes a Meow Wolf artist. It’s not always an easy answer. In Grapevine, for instance, “The Real Unreal,” housed in a former Bed Bath & Beyond, is centered around a family story of grief. On a tour of the space last summer, many of the locally commissioned pieces appeared designed to celebrate community and healing, be it a calming tower of reflective geometric shapes that feels like a place of worship, or murals that reference Greek mythology and hint at being at an emotional crossroads.
“We’re really looking for experiential art — it has to be immersive in some way that playfully subverts reality and that thematically connects with what we’re doing as a whole with the exhibition,” Santana-Sayles says. Then she references works from other Meow Wolf exhibitions.
“There’s so many different ways to do that,” she continues. “Ways people do that are with materials, characters and concepts. We have people doing Indigenous futurism. We have people working with only trash art, reconstructing everyday items. We have people making completely different planets that have their own interesting logic. The umbrella feels quite broad, but that’s really what I’m trying to find. I’m looking for people who have a really defined sense of what they do.”
Regardless of what is conceived, don’t assume a passive experience. The Meow Wolf design philosophy is one that’s based on active participation by the guest, a shift from less assertive forms of entertainment of yore, be it a museum or the early days of theme parks. Stray, not-so-hidden paths and an assortment of nooks dot a Meow Wolf exhibition, inviting guests to choose their own narrative. Story threads are peppered throughout. “Omega Mart,” for instance, grapples with environmental distress and corporate responsibility.
Meow Wolf’s West L.A. theater, says Di Ianni, also will be built for discovery. The byzantine paths and shifts in art direction are what he refers to as “good mystery confusion.”
“That was one of the challenges of using a movie theater as a point of entry,” Di Ianni says. “It’s passive. But there are stories told in movie theaters, and then there are stories of movie theaters and stories of the people who work at movie theaters. But when you get into that auditorium, it’s meant to be a blank space where stories are told. It’s a little meta. This is a storytelling space about storytelling.”
For those looking for further hints as to where the Los Angeles exhibition may veer, Di Ianni mentions that he and the team back in Santa Fe soon will be doing a group watch of Wolfgang Petersen’s “The Neverending Story.” The 1984 film is a fantastical work about the beauty of our imaginations and how art can bring dreamlike worlds to life.
And that’s ultimately fitting for a Meow Wolf exhibition. While there are narrative threads and elaborate ideas, Meow Wolf spaces are essentially places of wonder, where dozens of disparate artists come together to create something akin to an explorable fairy tale.
“We can’t control whether you decide to change your perception of the world, or change yourself or change the world,” Di Ianni says. “But we can set up the conditions for people to have a little more access to that possibility. It’s very high-minded and very activist in a way. That’s what art and entertainment does. That’s why we go on vacation. That’s why we go to Disneyland. We want to see the world differently. We want to open up possibilities.”
Meow Wolf’s exhibitions have always been theaters for fantasy, centering the guest as the performer. Eventually, they were bound to find themselves in a city whose primary industry is known for creating dreamers.
Lifestyle
This wholesome banger from a group of Irish kids is the spark you need
Creative Ireland
YouTube
Music fans, have we got a new, totally infectious bop for you: “The Spark,” a song created by a group of kids in Cork, Ireland. “I searched for my spark and I found it,” they exuberantly sing over a vibrant techno beat. They let their rhymes fly, too: “Making bangers at a young age,” one girl raps, “My pen setting fire to the page.”
As one listener enthused on X: “They had no business putting out something this deadly.”
“The Spark” was created by Rhyme Island, a youth rap initiative in Cork. The kids worked with a local producer named GMCBeats and The Kabin Studio, a music and creativity-focused nonprofit in the Knocknaheeny suburb of Cork.
They made the song in advance of Cruinniú na nÓg, an annual “national free day of creativity for young people” in Ireland. It features over 1,000 free events for kids and teenagers across Ireland, sponsored by the Irish government and supported by the Irish public broadcaster RTE. This year’s Cruinniú na nÓg activities take place on Saturday, June 15.
Rhyme Island’s video for “The Spark” was released by Creative Ireland, the Irish government initiative behind Cruinniú na nÓg. The video is just as cheery and wholesome as the song: The band of kids bounce down the aisle of a school bus and zip along a Cork sidewalk, decked out in colorful bucket hats and shades.
While “The Spark” does not yet seem to be available on digital platforms, Rhyme Island has a playlist of their other work on SoundCloud.
Lifestyle
'9 to 5' Star Dabney Coleman Dead at 92
Dabney Coleman — an absolute legend in Hollywood best known for his villainous turn in “9 to 5” — has died … TMZ has learned.
The actor’s daughter, Quincy Coleman, tells TMZ … “My Father, Dabney Wharton Coleman, took his last earthly breath peacefully and exquisitely in his home on Thursday May 16th, 2024 at 1:50 PM.”
She adds, “My father crafted his time here on earth with a curious mind, a generous heart, and a soul on fire with passion, desire and humor that tickled the funny bone of humanity. As he lived, he moved through this final act of his life with elegance, excellence and mastery.”
Finally, Quincy says … “A teacher, a hero, and a king, Dabney Coleman is a gift and blessing in life and in death as his spirit will shine through his work, his loved ones and his legacy…eternally.”
A cause of death was not revealed. However, Dabney reportedly canceled an April appearance at the Chiller Theatre in New Jersey over his ailing health.
In addition to his memorable work in “9 to 5,” Dabney famously played the sexist director in the 1982, Dustin Hoffman-led comedy, “Tootsie.”
He notably had almost 200 acting credits on his resume, appearing in a number of TV shows and films over the years … including “You’ve Got Mail,” “WarGames,” “Buffalo Bill, “Recess,” etc.
His last acting credit was for an episode of “Yellowstone,” in which he acted opposite Kevin Costner while playing John Dutton Sr.
Throughout his 60-year career, Dabney was nominated for 6 Emmy awards — winning once for his work in 1987’s “Sworn to Silence.” He also won a Golden Globe in 1988 for “The Slap Maxwell Story” and nabbed 2 SAG Awards alongside the ensemble of “Boardwalk Empire.”
TMZ.com
AUGUST 2018
We caught up with Dabney in Hollywood back in August 2018 … where he reacted to rumors about a possible “9 to 5” sequel. While he didn’t seem against the idea at the time … he stayed tight-lipped on whether a project was in the works.
Dabney — who was married and divorced twice — is survived by his 4 children. He was 92.
RIP
Lifestyle
From college exposés to family secrets, check out these new podcasts
NPR; KUT; NEPM; KCUR; KUOW
There’s a lot to celebrate in May — Cinco de Mayo, graduation, Mother’s Day, Memorial Day. Add finding your new favorite podcast to the list with the NPR One team’s recommendations from across public media.
The podcast episode descriptions below are from podcast webpages and have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Wild Card – NPR
Part-interview, part-existential game show – this is Wild Card from NPR. Host Rachel Martin rips up the typical interview script and invites guests to play a game about life’s biggest questions. Rachel takes actors, artists and thinkers on a choose-your-own-adventure conversation that lets them open up about their fears, their joys and how they’ve built meaning from experience – all with the help of a very special deck of cards.
Start listening to, “Why Jenny Slate sometimes feels like a ‘terminal optimist’.”
Ten Thousand Things with Shin Yu Pai – KUOW
This season features the stories of trailblazing Asian American women and the resilience of Asian American communities, even in the face of endangerment. Three of this season’s stories take place in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District Neighborhood, with help from the Wing Luke Museum. Featured guests include poet and former MMA cage fighter Jenny Liou; Seattle chef Tiffany Ran; and flutist Leanna Keith; among others. New episodes drop on Tuesdays. Ten Thousand Things: In many Chinese sayings, “ten thousand” is used in a poetic sense to convey something infinite, vast, and unfathomable. For Shin Yu Pai – award-winning poet and museologist – the story of Asians in America is just that. Ten Thousand Things is a podcast about modern-day artifacts of Asian American life and the stories they reveal, created and hosted by Shin Yu Pai and produced by KUOW (Seattle’s NPR station). Ten Thousand Things is a vibrant, diverse, and bittersweet celebration of Asian America … and a challenge for us all to reimagine stories of the past and future.
Listen to “Teardrop Lip.”
StoryCorps – NPR
In this season of the StoryCorps Podcast, we delve into what happens when individuals interview their parents, partners, or children — the ones who matter the most to them. Unlike a journalist, it’s someone they deeply cherish asking the questions. These stories are about people who have forged their own paths, done things their own way. Join us as we explore this archive, unveiling an unprecedented and candid portrayal of contemporary American life.
Listen to episode 1, “My Way.”
NPR Explains… – NPR
We’ve heard rhetoric about a “crisis at the border” and a “surge of migrants pouring into the U.S.” What’s happening at the border and what makes immigration such a key issue? NPR Explains is back to help break down U.S. immigration policy, conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border and how the system affects Americans. Join host and immigration correspondent Jasmine Garsd in NPR Explains: Immigration, a podcast series exclusively on the NPR app, which is available on the App Store or Google Play.
Start listening to part one, “Why is immigration a key issue?”
College Uncovered – GBH
In a world focused on getting in, do you know what you’re getting into? College Uncovered, from GBH News in collaboration with The Hechinger Report, pulls back the ivy on American higher education, exposing the problems, pitfalls and risks — and helping you navigate them. If you wonder how college really works, subscribe now. Because it’s a real education.
Start listening to episode 1, “Buyer Beware.”
The Secrets We Keep – NEPM
The stories we don’t tell, what they say about our world, and what they do to our minds — a new podcast from NEPM. Over five episodes, this limited series uses the lens of secrets to explore societal taboos and stigmas around sexual orientation, abortion, genetic origins, family scandals, and money — through the voices of secret-keepers, those kept in the dark, and history and social science experts (starting with the host’s family secret.)
Listen to part one, “Anatomy of a Secret.”
In Our Headphones – KEXP
Introducing KEXP’s newest music discovery podcast. In Our Headphones brings you five song recommendations every Monday, straight from KEXP’s DJs and Music Directors. We learn stories and insights about the artists, make connections between the music and the world around us, and get to know the diverse roster of DJs that make up the KEXP airwaves. Join hosts Janice Headley and Isabel Khalili on this never-ending journey of music discovery.
Listen to episode 1, “Cheryl Waters: Brimheim, English Teacher, Lair.”
Pause/Play – KUT
Up From Dust – KCUR
Trees are swallowing prairies. Bees are starving for food. Farmland is washing away in the rain. Humans broke the environment — but we can heal it, too. Up From Dust is a new podcast about the price of trying to shape the world around our needs, as seen from America’s breadbasket: Kansas. Hosts Celia Llopis-Jepsen and David Condos wander across prairies, farm fields and suburbia to find the folks who are finding less damaging, more sustainable ways to fix our generational mistakes.
Start listening to “When good plants turn bad.”
Untangled – WOSU
Body Electric – NPR
NPR’s Jessica Green and Jack Mitchell curated and produced this piece.
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