May 3—Santa Fe. Las Vegas, Nevada. Denver. Grapevine, Texas. Houston.
Next up, Los Angeles.
The Santa Fe-based arts and entertainment company Meow Wolf announced on Friday that its sixth permanent installation will be in Los Angeles, located in a former movie theater. It is slated to open in 2026.
“For years we’ve made trips to Los Angeles, dreaming of creating something in its layered and ever-changing network of creativity,” said Sean Di Ianni, Meow Wolf co-founder and senior creative director of Meow Wolf Los Angeles. “L.A. is more than a physical place; it extends deep into the global landscape of human imagination, constantly pushing its own bounds. Meow Wolf Los Angeles will stretch these cinematic horizons by weaving together an unpredictable tapestry of art, story and interactivity.”
The expansion announcement comes after the company laid off 159 employees on April 17, which included 29 employees, both corporate and exhibition, in New Mexico.
In the cost-cutting plan, Meow Wolf also closed its New York office and scrapped plans for a Los Angeles corporate office.
Meow Wolf began in 2008 as a DIY collective of Santa Fe artists who repurposed junk into staggering immersive art spaces and threw raucous warehouse parties.
When George R. R. Martin helped them open their wildly successful first permanent installation, “House of Eternal Return” in Santa Fe, the artists embarked on a meteoric rise in which they transformed the scrappy collective into a Certified B Corp.
Unlike conventional escape rooms, selfie museums, or immersive projection mapped tours, each of Meow Wolf’s locations is fully fleshed out and interconnected interactive worlds with underlying storylines.
For each location it inhabits, Meow Wolf collaborates with local artists to create an ode to the city they call home.
According to the company, Meow Wolf Los Angeles will encapsulate its signature style of maximalist fantasy woven together with a decidedly Angelino twist: cinematic mythos, mysterious eggs, absurd glitz, the fantastical spells cast by Hollywood, and novel connections to their existing Meow Wolf worlds in other cities, all that thrive under an overarching cosmic Meow Wolf Universe.
“This is more than an immersive experience,” said Jose Tolosa, Meow Wolf CEO. “We want it to be a part of the city’s ongoing narrative of growth. Being in Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world, we’re humbled to add to the dynamic interplay between art and entertainment here. Meow Wolf Los Angeles will blur the lines between reality and fantasy, inviting everyone to become part of a living, breathing spectacle.”
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