Although Carmen Menza created art for Meow Wolf Grapevine and has visited the new permanent exhibition multiple times, she is still making discoveries in this psychedelic funhouse of immersive art.
“I’ve been there three times and I’m still seeing new stuff,” Menza said. “There’s just so much to see. They fill up every single corner with some sort of art. To me, you can round a corner and there’s really never a boring wall or a boring space. They really fill up every nook and cranny.”
Menza is one of 38 Texas artists who contributed to the exhibition which opened in July. In total, 150 artists and fabricators fill more than 30 rooms with 70 distinct experiences. Meow Wolf began in Santa Fe as an artistic collective in 2008. Working together, the artists created Meow Wolf’s signature maximalist immersive art experience.
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In addition to Santa Fe, Meow Wolf now has exhibitions in Denver and Las Vegas. A Meow Wolf exhibition will open in Houston in 2024, making Texas the first state to have two Meow Wolf locations.
“To be associated with Meow Wolf and to be working with so many other insanely talented and creative people from Dallas and Santa Fe is really, really special,” Menza said.
Meow Wolf is a socially conscious company, investing in the artistic community each time it opens a new location.
“I love that they go to different cities and work with artists from that city and really help the economy of artists in that city,” Menza said.
Menza is a Dallas-based interdisciplinary artist who combines light, painting, technology and music to create installations that explore themes of time, space, color, perception and human connection. She is a founding member of Texas Vignette, a non-profit organization that promotes the work of women artists throughout Texas.
She has created installations for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, the Dallas Aurora Light & Sound Festival, UTSW Clements University Hospital, Carneal Simmons Contemporary Art, and Octavia Art Gallery. Meow Wolf differs from Menza’s other installations in one significant aspect.
“I love the fact that it is permanent. I am so used to doing installation work that is a one-time performance or a show at a gallery which is up for six weeks or so. It is cool to have works up in a space that is permanent,” Menza said.
In 2019, while Menza was a resident artist at Cedars Union, Meow Wolf interviewed her and visited her studio. It wasn’t until after the worst of the pandemic that Meow Wolf reached out to her again.
“It’s been about a two-year process putting this all together,” Menza said.
Over those two years, Menza collaborated with the Santa Fe artists to create installations for Meow Wolf Grapevine’s The Real Unreal, a story conceived by author LaShawn Wanak about a blended family who has unknowingly unlocked portals to a different existence.
“Their process for working with artists is so good. First of all, it is so organized, and it is so supportive. You could have an idea as an artist, but then you have got this other team of artists in Santa Fe that are really there to help you talk through problem-solving and help figure it out,” Menza said. “Their process is really great with different milestones for early stages for proposals and passing those different milestones, getting you to the place to where you’re actually starting to fabricate. Then they check in on you again. It was really nice. I didn’t ever feel like I was left hanging to figure stuff out on my own. They were really there to help.”
Menza created four dioramas for the exhibition: Promise Me the Sun, Ghost Universe, Tipping the Antimatter, and Submerged. For Promise Me the Sun, Ghost Universe and Tipping the Antimatter, Menza created an original score with her husband, Mark Menza.
Tipping the Antimatter is an interactive work she created with Joel Olivas, an interactive multimedia designer. Like Promise Me the Sun and Ghost Universe, Submerged is a light-based work.
Promise Me the Sun is a prominent feature of an alley, stopping visitors and making them reassess what they are seeing.
“I really try to play with their perception and try to use materials that are very evasive-looking and that changes colors as you’re shifting your angle of incidence in front of them,” Menza said.
The art resides within the narrative of The Real Unreal with visitors exploring rooms in what seems to be an ordinary-looking house before stumbling into some other realm.
“It’s a new concept for me for delivering art. As an artist, I’m used to thinking about presenting my art in galleries or art fairs,” Menza said. “To me, it’s like the way you would build a theater set because it’s telling a story.”
Although artists worked independently, there are repeated concepts and shapes.
“They have themes that run through the whole space that you’ll catch and little fun Easter eggs that wouldn’t know at all until you really dive deep into finding things,” Menza said.
Menza recommends first-time visitors prepare for a trippy adventure.
“Try to take it all in and enjoy it. There’s no right or wrong way to go through the space so there’s not a certain path you have to follow,” Menza said. “Just go with it and explore. Be open and explore.”
Learn more: Meow Wolf Grapevine
