Meow Wolf Supermarket to Sell ‘Existential Dairy’ and ‘Surreal Mayonnaise’

The news follows the announcement last week of Superblue, another ambitious art experience company.

Santa Fe arts and entertainment company Meow Wolf will open a new location in Las Vegas, Nevada, in early 2021. Omega Mart 'will be an eye-popping shopping experience where all products have an uncanny ability to fulfil desires beyond expectation,' they say.

'Collaborating artists local to Las Vegas and from around the world — plus our forged team of storytellers, fabricators, and artists in Santa Fe — are creating an unforgettable experience,' said Marsi Gray, Senior Creative Producer of Omega Mart.

The project will mix art installations with purchasable products created for the store, including: Surreal Mayonnaise, anthropomorphic root vegetable Daikon Pals, and Corn of Plenty, a 'forever cereal' made of plastic that, should you ignore the warnings and eat, 'will likely pass somewhat uneventfully through your digestive system, like an estimated 5 grams of plastic already does' each week.

More products can be viewed on Omega Mart's Instagram.

Omega Mart will occupy 52,000 square feet (4,831 square metres), double the size of the company's first permanent installation, House of Eternal Return, which began as an abandoned Santa Fe bowling alley. The site was transformed in 2016 after receiving US $3 million investment from Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin.

The Omega Mart announcement follows the launch last week of Superblue, a company specialising in immersive art experiences. While Superblue is closely connected to the gallery world — co-founded by Marc Glimcher, president and CEO of Pace Gallery, and Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, erstwhile director of Pace Gallery London — Meow Wolf's experiential art projects lean more towards what you encounter at a theme park. House of Eternal Return won a Themed Entertainment Association award in 2017 alongside Shanghai Disneyland, and in 2019 Meow Wolf opened Kaleidoscape, which they describe as an 'artist-driven ride', at Denver theme park Elitch Gardens.

House of Eternal Return drew about half a million visitors per year before closing due to the pandemic. According to the LA Times, Meow Wolf has since had to lay off or furlough more than 200 staff, over half its workforce, and the pandemic has reportedly delayed the expansion of Meow Wolf properties planned for Denver, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C., with the latter two now being reconsidered.

While the pandemic has set back the company's ambition of building art experiences on the level of Disney or Marvel entertainment, an app is being developed to help turn some of their exhibits into socially distant experiences. — [O]