Omega Mart is here and no, it’s not a new grocery store in the suburbs.
It’s the much-anticipated anchor tenant inside Area 15, an attraction complex just west of the Strip. It’s also the first major project by Meow Wolf outside its home state of New Mexico.
So who is Meow Wolf and why are they in Las Vegas?
Explaining all these things and more is the company’s senior creative producer, Marsi Gray. Meow Wolf is a social impact art project that fuels business and a business that fuels a social impact art project, Gray explained. We re in the business of creating together with a group of exquisite humans and offering to the public next-level art and storytelling experiences.
Feb. 19—Correction appended LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Santa Fe, meet Las Vegas. Or perhaps more accurately: Las Vegas, meet Santa Fe. The much-anticipated opening of Meow Wolf's next permanent installation came to fruition in Nevada on Thursday as Omega Mart took center stage within the bright lights of a big city that offers plenty of competition for the entertainment dollar. But if day one was any .
COVID-19 by the numbers New Mexico health officials yesterday reported 411 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the statewide total so far to 181,739. The health department has designated 126,446 of those cases as recovered. Bernalillo County had 125 cases, followed by Doña Ana County with 96 and Sandoval County with 24. Santa Fe County had 19 new cases, 11 from the 87507 ZIP code, which ranked eighth in the state yesterday for ZIP codes with the most new cases. The state also announced 18 additional deaths, including one from Santa Fe County: a woman in her 70s who was hospitalized and had underlying conditions. There have now been 131 deaths in Santa Fe County and 3,580 statewide. As of yesterday, 284 people were hospitalized with COVID-19.
A crazy new grocery store filled with zany products and art installations debuted at Area15, the 200,000-square-foot retail and entertainment center west of I-15 with live events and art installations. Omega Mart, from Santa Fe-based arts and entertainment company Meow Wolf, brings what it calls “America’s Most Exceptional Grocery Store.”
The space includes four themed areas and 60 installation-filled rooms, terrains, and portals to other worlds made by more than 325 artists including Beach House, Brian Eno, Amon Tobin, Shrine, and Android Jones.
Visitors start in Omega Mart, a space modeled after a big-box grocery store, filled with more than 100 custom products such as Wake Up Please! Energy Drink, Whale Song Antiperspirant/Antidepressant, Nebula Loaf, and Americanized Beef. The Dramcorp Offices on the second level of the exhibit offer a look inside a fictional, family-owned business dubbed the corporate entity behind Omega Mart, filled with a Tron-inspired office space.
Las Vegas Weekly
The upper level of Area15’s Emporium video-game lounge
Photo:
Steve Marcus
Geoff Carter Thu, Feb 18, 2021 (2 a.m.)
Omega Mart is vast, but it occupies only a third of Area15. The rest of the 200,000 square-foot, charcoal-color mystery box a cooperative effort between New York-based firms Beneville Studios and Fisher Brothers is devoted to unconventional dining, entertainment, retail and art. So much art, in fact, that some of it spills out of the building into the parking lot.
A sculpture park,
Art Island, sits in front of the main entrance; it features several large pieces of erstwhile Burning Man art, including Michael Benisty’s “In Every Lifetime I Will Find You” (a metallic couple locked in an embrace) and Ivan McLean’s “Giant Disco” (a huge disco ball on spider-like legs). There are impressive pieces inside Area15, too, particularly Bart Kresa and Joshua Harker’s “Shogyo Mujo,” the imposing, digitally mapped video skull that greets