The art anticipation is almost over as Meow Wolf Houston finally opens on Thursday, October 31. Radio Tave becomes the fifth location for the immersive and interactive art experience venture, joining Santa Fe, Las Vegas, Denver, and Grapevine,Texas, as Meow Wolf’s alien worlds take over America.
Photo by Tarra Gaines
Radio Tave showcases installations by Houston artists, including Havel Ruck Projects.
When CultureMap got invited to a sneak preview of Radio Tave, I was ready to tune in. In the past, I’ve had the opportunity to explore the original Santa Fe and the Las Vegas venues. Even for someone who has opened one of Meow Wolf trans-galactic refrigerators before, the experience can be overwhelming to the senses. For those new to the Meow Wolf experience, here’s our CultureMap Radio Tave programming guide to help you navigate the art adventure that awaits.
Follow the Story
All Meow Wolf experiences have an overarching science fiction narrative that binds the diverse collection of contemporary visual, sound, and video art together. While each story is unique, they do have some commonalities including a narrative frame. A Meow Wolf experience usually begins with a place of normality — a suburban family home, a grocery store, a radio station — where someone, somehow opened a doorway into another dimension, reality, or universe.
For Houston’s Radio Tave, we enter the lobby of what seems to be a small town Texas radio station, yet the staff and crew have all disappeared. At first glance, the lobby desk, broadcast room, offices and even record library all appear normal, if dated, but a closer look around and the oddities begin to pile up just like the dishes left in the break room sink.
Almost every door, including the break room refrigerator, leads to another art dimension. It’s up to each visitor to choose which door to walk through and then land in some far, far away galaxy in the Meow Wolf multi-art-universe. Along the way, we can put together clues as to what exactly happened to the staff and DJs of Texas radio station ETNL.
Walk the Dimensional Bridges
While each Meow Wolf exhibition is unique there are some commonalities over all or most of the five city experiences. Look for dark light illuminated forests, alien arcades and alleyways, room sized installations built upon that city's theme, and some type of refrigeration unit that leads to infinity. Seriously, there’s always a refrigerator. Some of the working phones installed throughout Radio Tave can dial out to the Santa Fe, Denver, Vegas, and Grapevine venues.
Listen for Houston Melodies
While anyone even slightly familiar with Meow Wolf will expect touchable visual art that transports visitors, sound has also always been a component in previous exhibitions. For Houston, sound art becomes an even more intrinsic, interactive part of the whole experience.
“That was the core conceit that we wanted to do something focused on audio, sound, music and all that could imply,” explains Spencer Olsen, senior creative director for Radio Tave. “Before we even had the radio station as a theme, sound was a theme. We wanted to do something very musical, something with spoken word and then the radio station jumped out of that core idea.”
Sound and music follow and surround visitors everywhere they go from the ghostly broadcast within Station ETNL to the bird calls based on local grackles in the event and bar area, to what looks like organic chimes on an giant alien tree in the Bailiwick area where mysterious broadcasts commence, to the jukebox in Cowboix Hevvven. Yes, as CultureMap previously reported, Radio Tave has its own colorful Texas dive bar, albeit one located somewhere at the end of the universe. Most of these soundscapes are interactive in some way, allowing visitors to take part in the creation of the art.
Read the Fine Print
This one you might want to save for a second or third visit, but try playing detective or just be nosy as you examine cluttered desks and read framed newspaper articles and concert posters on the walls. Feel free to open cabinets and peek through cubbyholes and holes in the woodwork. Art lies in the smallest places within Radio Tave, and if you can open a drawer or even a peep through a hole in a trashcan, there’s probably micro worlds to discover. Some of those bits of office and dive bar minutia help give us clues about the big narratives.
Spot Your Favorite Houston Artists’ Work
When a Meow Wolf exhibition comes to a town they always recruit local and regional artists to join in on the artful experience building. And those contributions can be seen at all levels. Some Houston artists were given a specific space, ranging from a file cabinet to create a radio bat cave, to a wall or full hallways for their mural art, while other artists were allotted whole rooms for immense installations. In another round of selections, some creatives were chosen for the project Art Team Task Force (ATTF), that oversees the on-site installation. Meow Wolf describes the ATTF work as applying the final artistic “frosting,” to ensure “continuity and connections across installations and exhibitions; evolving and perfecting the process with each installation.”
All together over 50 Texas artists contributed to the building of Radio Tave. While it’s going to take many repeat visits to fully discover all the Texas art woven into the experience, here are just a few of the outstanding Houston artists who contributed to the overall exhibit.
Before Meow Wolf was just a kitty pup, Havel Ruck Projects (a.k.a Dan Havel and Dean Ruck) were creating reality-defying large installations in Houston, so they were always going to be a natural fit within the Radio Tave landscapes. Spend some time inside their mechanical room that resembles some kind of multi-dimensional HVAC system cooling an entire galaxy.
Visual and theater artist Afsaneh Aayani has worked with many theater companies around town as a puppetry and set designer, director, collaborator, and advisor. Her Persian-inspired room that fuses painting, sculpture, and lighting design is must-see. As is the case for Radio Tave in its entirely, be sure to open the ornate cabinets.
Jasmine Zelaya’s flowered covered portraits have been displayed all over town including on giant marquees in downtown Houston and on a monumental scale on the Rice University campus. Now those portraits become a part of Radio Tave’s otherworldly landscapes.
Revisit Houston Hip Hop history with El Franco Lee II’s mural and audio homage to DJ Screw. Dig through the geology of memory in Patrick Renner’s earth stratum of found and hoarded objects. Wander through Falon Mihalic’s sculptured mural garden inspired by local flora.
Those are just a few of the Houston artists’ works visitors will find at Radio Tave. Now that Meow Wolf has found a permanent Houston home, visitors have plenty of space/time to continue those art adventures.
