Crews are putting the finishing touches on the WNDR Museum before it opens Thursday in Downtown Crossing.
- Axios got the first full tour of the Boston museum yesterday.
Why it matters: WNDR brings colorful, perception-bending, interactive art into the 17,000-square-foot space — a starkly different experience than the average art museum tour.
What's happening: Boston is the WNDR Museum's latest city, following openings in Chicago and San Diego.
- A third location in Seattle closed in December, eight months after opening.
- Like the other locations, the Boston outpost will host yoga classes, food pop-ups and a poet in residence, says Brian Haines, WNDR's chief experience officer.
Zoom in: The museum includes more than 20 installations from visual artists, in-house designers and other collaborators.
- The museum features several tactile installations that react to weight and movement.
- There are also more controversial sections, such as the exhibit where visitors use AI to create new art (generative AI relies on existing art ).
If you go: The museum is at 500 Washington St. and runs seven days a week ( hours vary ).
- Price: $32, $38 for peak times. Discounts available for students, seniors and military members.
Photo: Steph Solis/Axios
The tour begins in a mirrored hallway, where the LCD screens change color with each step you take.
Photo: Steph Solis/Axios
When the "magnetic symphony" room is complete, attendees will be able to hold up a can to each wire and hear a different voice.
Photo: Steph Solis/Axios
San Francisco-based artist Joshua Ellingson created the MPO-1 installation to show videos that explore optical effects.
- In this case, the image of a sheep cuts through the videos before being projected at the top.
Photo: Steph Solis/Axios
"INSIDEOUT" is a 360-degree multimedia installation by Berlin-based artist Leigh Sachwitz.
- It recreates Sachwitz's childhood memory of being in her grandmother's garden shed in Scotland during a storm.
Photo: Steph Solis/Axios
The "Living Gallery" includes electronic portraits that come to life when you least expect it.
- The gallery will include seating so people can admire the portraits and watch them come alive as others enter the hall.
Photo: Steph Solis/Axios
The immersive theater will project interactive lights on three walls and the floor, Haines says.
- When complete, the theater will include seating.
- WNDR plans to host yoga sessions and other events in the theater, per Haines.
Photo: Steph Solis/Axios
One card says, "I am wisdom." Another proclaims, "I'm tired." Photo: Steph Solis/Axios
"The Wisdom Project" by WNDR Studios asks visitors at each museum to answer the question "what do you know for sure?"
- Boston has the largest wall, which will soon be filled with answers from local visitors, Haines tells Axios.
- Eventually, the messages from every city will go into a coffee-table book, Haines says.
Photo: Steph Solis/Axios
The installation of phones designed by WNDR Studios includes the voices of activists and other changemakers.
- The placard states, "Silence is the easy path. Will you say something? Will you speak up?"
It's like the room puked stainless steel polka dots. Photo: Steph Solis/Axios
Kusama's "Let's Survive Forever" installation is a mirrored room filled with inflatable, stainless steel spheres.
The atrium. Photo: Steph Solis/Axios
The atrium has multiple interactive installations:
- A rainbow sight-and-sound exhibit that lights up as you press the buttons on a controller.
- An art piece that doubles as seating (it's surprisingly comfortable).
- An LCD wall that changes colors as you move in front of it.
- A compilation of irises collected by visitors.
Chief Experience Officer Brian Haines gets his eye photographed for the iris installation. Photo: Steph Solis/Axios
The iris exhibit will be set up with a camera and computer so visitors can get photographs of their eyes taken for the compilation on the screen.
Photo: Steph Solis/Axios
Richard Prince, considered the master of appropriation , has long caused controversy by tweaking existing art to make it his own.
- To him, even a blown up Instagram photo someone else took with a comment from him counts as "his" art.
WNDR took a page out of Prince's book, photoshopping its own comment and adding neon graffiti in founder Brad Keywell's handwriting.
- The message, "we are all artists" speaks to the mission behind the WNDR Museum, employees say.
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