Formula 1 Alec Monopoly timepiece<\/a>. Long before F1 planted its flag in Miami, Monopoly had fallen in love with the motorsport in Monaco, where the Grand Prix dates back to 1929.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019ve been doing F1 in Monaco for years now, almost ten years,\u201d he says, adding that the glamour of the locale is part of the allure.<\/p>\n
\u201cFormula One is a very interesting sport because it attracts such wealthy fans,\u201d he says. \u201cYou fly into the private jet airport, and it\u2019s full of jets and this jet-set crowd.\u201d (Monopoly\u2019s fascination with the aircraft was evident at Basel last year, when he debuted \u201cFlying to a Happy Place,\u201d his multi-site exhibition featuring life-size jet sculptures and large-scale installations.)<\/p>\n
Still, as Formula 1 has grown into a marquee American event, with races in Miami and Las Vegas, Monaco\u2019s excesses haven\u2019t been able to compete against sentimental biases. \u201cMiami is my favorite because [it\u2019s] kind of like my hometown,\u201d Monopoly says.<\/p>\n
Miami Has Grown With Formula 1<\/p>\n
The race\u2019s arrival in Miami five years ago \u2014 and its rapid ascent as an event that nips at Art Basel\u2019s heels in the number of parties and satellite events it spawns \u2014 coincides with the city\u2019s broader transformation into a global cultural and entertainment capital. Monopoly saw the seeds of that transformation first-hand in Wynwood years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was beautiful back then,\u201d he says. \u201cBeautiful and pretty gnarly.\u201d<\/p>\n
He remembers a Wynwood that felt slightly dangerous and unpredictable, but offered a level of freedom that has become harder to find in its more polished iteration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a lot more collaborations between artists,\u201d he remembers. \u201cWe would get down on a wall \u2014 it would be four or five different artists from New York or L.A. \u2014 and we\u2019d all be working together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wynwood is decidedly more commercial now, with real estate and hospitality ventures replacing warehouse galleries, and those tides of transformation are expanding across the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen Miami change before our eyes, from a place where old people would come to spend the winters, to a global hub of art and music and culture,\u201d he says. One aspect that remains the same: Monopoly maintains personal connections with Miami\u2019s movers and shakers, particularly David Grutman and the Papi Steak circle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are my boys,\u201d he says. \u201cFrom day one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turntables as Canvas<\/p>\n
Music is part of that cultural ecosystem, too, and as it turns out, it was working on one of his visual pieces that got Monopoly to dust off his decks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was using the turntables as the canvas,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd then I was like, you know what? I\u2019m just gonna plug the turntables in and start DJing a little bit again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The side pursuit is part of his wider practice these days. Touring as a DJ has given him access to cities he might not otherwise have visited, and he always uses those opportunities to leave a visual mark.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s opening up the world to me \u2014 for my art as well, not just the music,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Those passions continue to converge. Monopoly has already created F1-inspired works and sculptures, and he speaks openly about wanting to take that relationship even further. It feels like a natural step for an artist who\u2019s made a career of refusing to choose between disciplines, instead opting to blend them into something unmistakably his own.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole car would be amazing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Maybe sometime in Monaco, but hopefully in Miami.<\/p>\n
Alec Monopoly. 6 p.m. Friday, May 1, at The Setai Miami Beach Hotel, 2001 Collins Ave., Miami Beach; 646-509-6353. Admission is free with RSVP via edenart.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alec Monopoly will debut new works and perform a special DJ set at Eden Gallery inside The Setai…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[71030,31514,225,227,226,13360],"class_list":["post-250981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-electronic-music","tag-formula-1","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news","tag-public-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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