Sweet Tooth Hotel, a temporary art installation in Dallas' Victory Park, did more than whet the appetites of its Instagram-hungry attendees. It signaled that people in Dallas were willing to stand in line for an imaginary hotel where every room was decked out in colorful art.
Were they art lovers? Maybe. Were they dying to impress their friends on social media? Certainly. And if you weren't one of them, click here to look inside the fuzzy, foamy, saccharine, silly Sweet Tooth Hotel.
Sweet Tooth Hotel's creators, husband and wife Cole and Jencey Keeton, have just announced they will open a second art installation after the first closes. The new installation will be called Sweet Tooth Hotel: 1955 and will showcase "beloved design from midcentury atomic to the Space Age, hearkening back to a time when everyone was looking towards outer space and the limitless potential of technology," says a press release.
Picture rocket ships with rainbows coming out of their butts.
Giant robots made by artist Hatziel Flores. Alien snowmen from artist Rob Wilson.
1955 is expected to open Nov. 2 at the same Victory Park address, a tiny, vacant storefront in an area bookended by the House of Blues on one end and the American Airlines Center on the other. Its curators did a bangup job of making the 1,200-square-foot place feel almost spacious.
The new chapter is expected to close on New Year's Eve — but only time will tell; the OG Sweet Tooth Hotel was extended two times and is now sold out until its end on Aug. 31. The Keetons say if there's a Sweet Tooth Hotel 3.0, it will be in a larger space.
Tickets to 1955 will cost $20 (and children under 2 admitted free). Attendees get one hour inside, and, it goes without saying, unlimited ability to take photographs.
Sweet Tooth Hotel is similar to art installations across the country fueled by an "i was here" social media following. Meow Wolf in Santa Fe is one example, and it calls itself an "immersive experience"; the Denver Post uses the phrase "art playground." The Museum of Ice Cream is another example, and its founder tells CNBC she's into "the psychology of color."
At Yayoi Kusama's "All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins" at the Dallas Museum of Art, 64,000 people visited. Suffice it to say these aren't indie art houses. They're popular.
"I think many people are here to just take pictures," Cole Keeton of the Sweet Tooth Hotel told our reporter Nataly Keomoungkhoun in a story that explores social media's role in art interaction.
A Sweet Tooth Hotel attendee told Keomoungkhoun in that same story, "[Sweet Tooth Hotel] is cooler 'cause you don't have to feel like you're walking on eggshells next to the art. You can feel free to interact with it," Jessica Sigala said.
Sweet Tooth Hotel's upcoming 1955 proves that Dallasites (and Dallas tourists) likely have an appetite for another round.
"Cole and I feel a mix of emotions from day to day after seeing how everyone embraced Sweet Tooth Hotel: happy, amazed, expectant and excited for what's to come," Jencey Keeton says. "It shows that our city is hungry for innovation and there is incredible talent here that is ready to rise to the occasion."
