Immersive art company Meow Wolf this week announced plans for a third location outside of its home in Santa Fe, joining previously announced expansions in Denver and Las Vegas.
The 10-year-old company will open a “massive installation” in Washington, D.C., in 2022, representatives said in a press statement Tuesday. The 75,000-square-foot, three-story structure in the Fort Totten community is the result of a partnership with the Cafritz Foundation.
“Washington, D.C., is an international cultural powerhouse and an ideal setting for the evolving Meow Wolf story universe that began with House of Eternal Return,” CEO Vince Kadlubek said in the statement, referring to the original location, which has become a boon to the already tourist-happy city of Santa Fe. “Our intergalactic, transmedia story is rooted in a community of underdogs who overcome ‘The Powers That Be,’ and we will have something really special for all the fellow underdogs who seek a transformative experience when we unveil the D.C. chapter.”
Meow Wolf, which proudly touts its DIY, outsider beginnings, also last week shared renderings of its Denver location, for which it has signed a 20-year, $60 million lease.
The four-story, 90,000-square-foot complex at the junction of Interstate 25, Colfax Avenue and Auraria Parkway viaducts — just west of downtown Denver — will take cues from the quirky, surreal hodgepodge of sculptures and interactive exhibits at its Santa Fe location.
A site development plan approved by the city in October showed a ground floor with a main lobby, a gift shop/retail space and a bar/music venue, according to the Denver Infill blog. The second floor will hold staff offices and a conference space, and floors three through five will contain the interactive art exhibits, the blog reported.
As the renderings from project architect Shears Adkins Rockmore show, parking for the building at 1338 1st St. will be situated in a surface lot to the north, while the design of the structure takes clever advantage of the triangle created by the intersecting viaducts — just a stone’s throw from Broncos Stadium at Mile High and the Auraria Higher Education Center.
The news caps Meow Wolf’s biggest year yet.
Starting in January, Meow Wolf touted major expansions and innovative programming (including melding virtual reality and live performance); the first “artist-driven dark ride” (Kaleidoscope, to debut at Denver’s Elitch Gardens in 2019); poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the metro-area’s artistic community via grants and sponsorships; and watched the worshipful “Meow Wolf: Origin Story” documentary premiere in 700 theaters nationwide.
“It’s definitely a business decision in the sense that we want to have good exposure with certain demographics,” Kadlubek told The Denver Post in July, shortly after Denver arts-and-literary publication Suspect Press revealed a two-year, $125,000 grant from Meow Wolf.
As befits its mix of circus-like showmanship and thoughtful, culture-twisting art, Meow Wolf promised that however weird its projects may seem, they’re intended for a general audience.
“As with all our immersive experience projects, the exhibition in D.C. will be family-friendly and accessible to local residents as well as the many tourists and VIPs who visit our nation’s capital from around the world,” Kadlubek said. “Audiences should expect dazzling, inspired and wild experiences totally unlike anything they have ever known before.”
More major location announcements are expected in 2019, the company said.
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