Meow Wolf to Open New York Edition of Its Immersive Art Program

Meow Wolf — which runs a psychedelic string of immersive art exhibits across the country — has announced plans to build its first East Coast outpost, at Pier 17 in the South Street Seaport neighborhood of Manhattan, with an opening set for 2027 or 2028.

“There is big ambition here,” Vince Kadlubek, one of the company’s founders, who holds the title of chief vision officer, said in an interview. “There is a joyful pressure, the kind of pressure that creatives feel when you are reaching for something that is intending to be remarkable.”

He said New York would be the company’s largest investment in a single location, requiring tens of millions of dollars and collaboration between nearly 500 artists and designers to fill a nearly 50,000-square-foot venue. Meow Wolf is also partnering with Seaport Entertainment Group, which operates a food hall and concert venue at the site.

“The biggest evolution for us in the New York project is the level of connectivity between the exhibition and the participant,” said Kadlubek, explaining that he wanted visitors to feel like they are inside a video game where their choices might influence the world around them. He added that the main sources of inspiration for this new location were immersive theater performances like “Sleep No More” and a Brooklyn night club called House of Yes.

Meow Wolf started in 2008 as an art collective running on a shoestring budget in Santa Fe, N.M. But over the past decade, it has transformed into one of the largest immersive art companies in the world, employing nearly 1,000 people to run the sites, dripping in neon paint.