California Today: Immersive art

Exhibits include Glenn Kaino's new show in Los Angeles and the mainstay "Sensorio" in Paso Robles.
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By Soumya Karlamangla

California Today, Writer

It's Wednesday. As experiential art grows increasingly popular, exhibits to visit in California. Plus, the latest on the Orange County shooting.

Glenn Kaino spoke at the opening celebration for "A Forest for the Trees" in Los Angeles last week.Charley Gallay/Getty Images For A Forest For The Trees

Perhaps, as our interactions are more and more mediated by screens, you're seeking to immerse yourself in the tangible world, to awaken all your senses. Or, maybe, you just want a cool photo for social media.

Either way, California can satisfy your craving.

The state has a growing number of immersive art exhibits that, as the name implies, submerge the viewer like a fun house. These increasingly popular installations allow you to step into the deep blue of Van Gogh's "Starry Night," or tour the world's trippiest supermarket, filled with bizarre commodities crafted by artists.

Today, I'm sharing a selection of immersive art exhibits around the Golden State:

"A Forest for the Trees" by Glenn Kaino — Los Angeles

This show, which opened last week, leads visitors through a surreal forest inside a 28,000-square-foot Boyle Heights warehouse. The forest includes actual redwood trees, as well as handmade sculptures, animatronic robots and glimmering installations.

Its creator and director, the Los Angeles artist Glenn Kaino, wants to push audiences to reimagine their relationship with the natural world. He told The Los Angeles Times that the project was his most ambitious yet.

"I feel like I've worked my entire career to build the skills and the tools to even try to conceive of this idea, let alone to hopefully accomplish it with a level of quality," he said.

"Immersive Frida Kahlo" — San Francisco and Los Angeles

The works of the iconic Mexican artist are coming to life in nine cities across the nation. The show loosely traces Kahlo's life and showcases her famous self-portraits and vivid surrealist pieces.

Read more about the shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

"Field of Light at Sensorio" by Bruce Munro — Paso Robles

This mind-bending spectacle has drawn thousands of tourists and become an Instagram phenomenon since it first opened in 2019.

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Visitors arrive at the field at dusk, "when thousands of solar-powered glass orbs on stems, created by the artist Bruce Munro, enfold visitors in an earthbound aurora borealis of shifting hues," my colleague Patricia Leigh Brown wrote in The Times.

"The subtly changing patterns of this light safari, activated by a nebula of fiber-optic cables attached to hidden projectors, seem to inspire a cathedral-like awe among ticket-holders."

"Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience" exhibit in New York last year.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times

Van Gogh is the rock star of the immersive art genre, with some half-dozen companies selling tickets to enter a kind of trippy, post-Impressionist dream world.

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Yet another van Gogh show is coming to Sacramento in November, with tickets on sale now. The exhibit bills itself as "the largest immersive experience in the country."

For more:

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If you read one story, make it this

The recent decline in the nation's public school system won't be easily reversed.

Golden State's Stephen Curry going up for a shot against Dallas's Luka Doncic during a game earlier this year.Kelley L Cox/USA Today Sports, via Reuters

The rest of the news

  • N.B.A. West: What to expect when the Golden State Warriors face off against the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday for Game 1 of the Western Conference finals.
  • Diablo Canyon: Many environmental and antinuclear organizations are against extending the life of California's last operating nuclear power plant, The Associated Press reports.
  • California condors: Scientists have found new and mysterious DDT chemicals accumulating in California condors, The Los Angeles Times reports.
  • Formula shortage: The nationwide baby formula shortage has prompted warnings from California officials, LAist reports.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
  • Church shooting: A prosecutor said the man accused of opening fire in an Orange County church over the weekend wanted to "execute in cold blood as many people in that room as possible," The Associated Press reports.The Los Angeles Times profiled Dr. John Cheng, who was killed in the shooting after he put himself in the line of fire to prevent others from being shot. "He sacrificed himself so others could live," said Orange County's district attorney, Todd Spitzer.
  • L.A. mayor's race: The Los Angeles city attorney, Mike Feuer, dropped out of the race for mayor on Tuesday and endorsed Representative Karen Bass, KTLA reports.
  • Angel Stadium: An Orange County judge put the sale of Angel Stadium on hold amid an ongoing public corruption investigation into the mayor of Anaheim, The Los Angeles Times reports.
CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
  • A chance of fire: A large swath of Northern California, including the Sacramento Valley, is on fire weather watch starting Thursday.
  • Public trial: An appeals court overturned a man's firearms conviction after ruling that an Oakland court's Covid protocols had violated his right to a public trial.
  • Cannabis tax: A proposed ballot measure in Oakland would divert cannabis tax revenue to pay for services for victims of the war on drugs, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
  • Goose poop: Foster City residents plan to protest a proposal to euthanize hundreds of Canada geese to decrease their population and their fecal matter, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Christopher Testani for The New York Times

What we're eating

A Sri Lankan dal of tender lentils.

Beth Coller for The New York Times

Where we're traveling

Today's tip comes from Pelle P. Smits, who recommends Wilder Ranch State Park near Santa Cruz:

"The park originates from the division of the Mission Santa Cruz pasture lands in the 1830s, becoming the Mexican Rancho Refugio, before the dairyman D.D. Wilder acquired a significant piece of the land, becoming today's Wilder Ranch State Park. Many of the ranch houses, including several adobes, have been preserved and restored and their history can be discovered when exploring the park. The area's trails allow for pleasant strolls, hikes, and biking routes along the cliffs. The Wilder and Strawberry beaches and their surrounding rock formations are often occupied by hundreds of resting seals while giving way to stunning coastal views. The park is a habitat for various species of birds, with ocean low tides uncovering the park's further richness of sea stars, urchins, whales, and sea otters."

Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We'll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter.

Tell us

What do you want to know about California's June primary election? Email us your questions at CAToday@nytimes.com.

And before you go, some good news

After arriving at their friends' nuptials in Burbank, Dr. Vivian Esther Yee and Joshua Kent Ma soon found out they would be paired together as bridesmaid and groomsman.

The two, who had not met before the 2017 wedding, also learned that they were the wedding party's only single members.

"Obviously we were set up," Ma told The Times.

Their friends' matchmaking worked. Last month, almost five years after that first meeting, Yee and Ma had their own wedding.

Thanks for reading. I'll be back tomorrow. — Soumya

P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword, and a clue: Meat on a skewer (5 letters).

Briana Scalia and Mariel Wamsley contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at CAtoday@nytimes.com.

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