Prince Albert has marked the 120th anniversary of Monaco’s police service, the Sûreté Publique, during a ceremony at the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco which included the unveiling of a commemorative hymn, digital portrait and stamp.
This year, 2022, marks 120 years since Prince Albert I created the police force, Sûreté Publique, in Monaco.
On Friday 1st July, Prince Albert II and Controlleur Général Richard Marangoni were amongst those to address the commemorative gathering at the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, including the artists who presented their diverse pieces created specifically for the occassion.
The ceremony, which was associated with the centenary of Prince Albert I’s death, began with Richard Marangoni recognising the work of his colleagues. “I pay particular homage to all personnel for what is, on a day-to-day basis, difficult, onerous and dangerous work,” he said. “But it is our vocation, our life and our honour. Behind the uniforms, these are men and women who are devoted to the protection of the people.”
Prince Albert II continued by praising the “reassuring, protecting force” that is the Sûreté Publique. He concluded by thanking the Sûreté Publique for their service and saying that they have all his “support and trust”.
One-by-one, the artistic pieces were presented, or performed as was the case with the Sûreté Publique prayer, which was first performed at the St. Georges Day mass this April and again during the ceremony by Father Julien Gollino. The priest revealed that the piece was inspired by the Sûreté Publique’s motto “Loyalty, vigilance, bravery”. The prayer was followed by a new hymn created for the institution, which was played by an orchestra.
Three commemorative Sûreté Publique greetings cards were also released, alongside a digital portrait of Prince Albert I, founder of the Sûreté Publique. As with many important events that take place in the Principality, the postal service has also released a commemorative stamp, which shows the iconic hat of a Monégasque officer.
A double-sided medal was also unveiled as was a cartoon strip, the script of which was written by the Sûreté Publique themselves. The grandest unveiling of the event was left to Claude Gauthier, an artist who served in the Sûreté Publique for over 27 years. He unveiled a large painting that features the symbols of the institution, as well as its motto inscribed in Latin.
Two special edition Tudor watches and a 460-page book detailing the illustrious history of the Monégasue institution rounded off the works and objects that will commemorate what is a special year for Monaco’s police force.
Top photo: Manuel Vitali, Government Communication Department
Monaco Life, in partnership with the Princess Grace Foundation-USA, is proud to present a monthly series highlighting the lives and artistic work of the Princess Grace Foundation-USA’s illustrious Award winners.
In this month’s exclusive interview, Princess Grace Foundation-USA’s Director of Programming Diana Kemppainen catches up with Princess Grace Award winner Amie Siegel to discuss her origins as an artist, and her epic new work, Bloodlines, on display at the National Galleries of Scotland.
Amie is an acclaimed artist who works in film, video, photography, sculpture, painting and installation. Her work is held in public collections across the globe including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Germany; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
Her latest work, Bloodlines, is a large-scale film installation in which she explores ideas of class and labour, and the relationship between private and public realms. Siegel follows the movement of paintings by English artist Georges Stubbs (1724-1806), from their homes in aristocratic country estates and public institutions across the UK to a Stubbs exhibition in a public gallery, and their subsequent return.
Firstly, can tell us what drew you to the arts or made you want to be an artist?
Amie Siegel: I was always drawing and painting from a very early age, but with a real seriousness. I was lucky in that my parents took me to art museums and talked about art with me, as well as theater, film and fashion. I grew up in Chicago, which is such a striking environment to be looking at and trying to understand as a visual child – the modernist skyscrapers cutting into that huge body of water, Lake Michigan.
We had a subscription to Steppenwolf Theatre, a small 30-person theater, and seeing all those productions, assessing the scenography, the writing, the dialogue, sitting in the dark for hours trying to grasp what was going on and how and why… even when I was very young, I think it made a huge impression on me.
Art very quickly became the thing I cared most about, along with reading and watching films, such that everything else seemed like it would be almost perverse for me to pursue as an adult. I carried that into my adult life for many years, everything else in my world was just utterly subordinate to making things. But, of course, this came from the feeling you get in the process of creating – that you’re onto something and just trying not to lose the thread but hold onto the thing, to keep it alive and shape it into a work, it’s just the best feeling. Everything is at stake, but you’re aware of it, trying to keep it afloat and develop it, until it can settle into an artwork.
‘Bloodlines’, photo credit: Jason Schmidt, courtesy Thomas Dane Gallery.
Your work encompasses many mediums. You work in film, video, photography, painting, sculpture, and installation. How do you choose which medium(s) to work with?
Usually, the project (and medium) chooses me. There should be a clear reason for working within a particular medium or materials, and usually it is a conceptual one. I am often following the journey of objects in my work.
In the instance of Bloodlines, it is paintings. But it has also been archeological artifacts, design objects, even marble, in prior works. Film becomes a gathering place to both assemble and represent the subtle details of an object but also to perform its movements. I actually don’t think of my film works as movies per se but as larger gestures of collage, where something (an object, chair, or painting) is cut out from its background and placed into a new context, and that journey or insertion into a new place speaks volumes about the differences between where an object lived before (how it was used, looked at, or valued) and where it reappears. That shift can tell us about how we care for objects, how we humans construct their values, or perpetuate the values we deem they represent.
Value, culture ownership, and image-making are recurring themes throughout your work. Tell us about Bloodlines, your new installation currently at the National Galleries of Scotland?
Bloodlines was filmed in numerous private estates throughout England and Scotland, as well as in public institutions, and follows the movement of paintings by the English artist George Stubbs (1724-1806) – he painted the British aristocracy: their families, most famously their horses, but also their dogs, hunts, shoots and their ‘exotic’ animal menageries. The film follows the paintings from the private stately homes where they reside and often were originally commissioned, to their exhibition in a public art museum, and subsequent return.
Through these movements, the film creates an intimate look into the world of elite cultural property, questioning the ownership of heritage and distinctions between private and public realms. As the film unfolds, people, property, animals and objects move between the real and the represented, creating a mirror of human, equine and artistic bloodlines. In creating a portrait of the places where these portraits reside, the labour and leisure within them, and the contemporary version of their subjects, the film thus depicts systems of class and inherited wealth, while subtly suggesting colonialism’s role in establishing and perpetuating these structures.
Bloodlines, photo credit: Jason Schmidt, courtesy Thomas Dane Gallery.
Bloodlines was supported in part by a Special Project grant from the Princess Grace Foundation. What did that support mean for this work?
The Special Project grant allowed the work to begin! I had the idea for Bloodlines, but time was passing, and the events I wanted to film were going to happen with or without me. Thankfully, the timing of the grant and its crucial support made it possible to catch the collection of the Stubbs paintings from the various stately homes across England and Scotland, which makes up the first 1/3 of the film.
Support from the Princess Grace Foundation is so meaningful and unique because it doesn’t stop when you receive that initial support as a student, it can continue throughout those critical years when you’re first out in the world as an artist and beyond. That is incredibly rare. I have received many wonderful grants and fellowships over the years, but only the Princess Grace Foundation creates a sustained relationship with artists, who can return for help in creating new works throughout their careers.
The support for my work began in 1999 when I was a graduate student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. With that initial grant, I made my first film, The Sleepers, one that was shown at museums all over the world, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
What do you hope the audience sees in the work?
I like when a work of art provokes viewers to ask questions, rather than stakes out a clear position or easy answer. With Bloodlines, the questions that arise when viewing the work – who owns cultural property, the persistence of the ruling class, how very much like the past (as represented in the Stubbs paintings) the present seems, the overwhelming presence of the colonial world and its hegemonies to this day, whether my piece is representing portraiture or is an act of portraiture itself… These are not answered by the artwork, but are questions raised by the artwork. It’s up to the viewer to form their own opinions and answers.
Bloodlines, photo credit: Jason Schmidt, courtesy Thomas Dane Gallery.
Princess Grace was also an artist that worked with different forms. She’s best known as an actress, but later worked with pressed flowers and needlework. If you could have a conversation with her, artist to artist, what might you say?
Oh gosh, I might want to share Laura Mulvey’s essay, ‘Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema’ with Princess Grace, which explores the concept of ‘The Male Gaze’ as played out in Hitchcock’s Rear Window, a film in which she starred. I would also be very curious to know what she thinks of Bloodlines, given her own Philadelphia ‘Main Line’ background and later entrance into royal life – I would imagine that would be a very interesting discussion about status, aristocracy, and privilege! As to her endeavors with pressed flowers and needlework, certainly a mutual studio visit would be in order.
The Princess Grace Foundation-USA is dedicated to upholding the legacy of Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco (neé Grace Kelly), and elevating extraordinary emerging artists in theatre, dance and film through career-advancing grants. Follow along at @princessgraceus.
Maison d’Art is hosting an exhibit in the Hôtel de Paris featuring artists from the 13th century to today who have incorporated gold as an enhancement to their paintings, adding richness, depth and a certain show of power.
It’s not called the gold standard for nothing. Gold as a precious metal has been cherished for millennia as a sign of wealth and power, but it also has been used for its inherent beauty. This manifested itself over the centuries in jewellery, objets d’art, and fine art.
Now, Maison d’Art in Monaco is putting together a show dedicated entirely to the use of gold in art, entitled Gold, Secular and Sacred, featuring gold-inflected pieces from the 13th century to the present.
In days gone by, gold was used in the form of leaf or as an eye-catching detail. The resulting works were highly treasured and typically signified high rank or status, as well as being a sort of tribute to a certain place, often a church.
Di Pietro, St Augustine
The painters who specialised in working with gold were hugely respected and many became famous during their lifetimes. As for the patrons, gold ground pictures were presented to local parishes, and the quantity of images often stood in direct proportion to the quality of relations between individual offering the piece and the Church.
The exhibit combines painting of this era by Niccolò di Pietro, Andrea di Bonaiuto, Jacobello del Fiore, and Bartolomeo Rigossi da Gallarate and Tuscan Byzantine painter Pietro Lorenzetti, who was a collaborator of Segna di Buonaventura with an artist from today, Carlos Rolón.
Born in Chicago, he is known for his multi-disciplinary practice that employs craft, ritual, beauty, spirituality, and history to explore memory and the macro narrative of the Caribbean diaspora as a symbol for broader issues surrounding migration and inclusion.
Rolón uses gold to “explore history that directly deals with questions of inclusion, aspiration, cultural identity, cultivated settings, and their relationship to post-colonial spaces.” He uses gold intermixed with vivid tropical flowers from the New World to show how the beauty of the locations got lost in the quest for gold by the early Spanish explorers. The gold-lust decimated the Americas whilst gold went to Spain to line the pockets of the wealthy.
These works reimagine the beautiful flora and fauna that protected these precious minerals, creating a sense of urgency and beauty from a place of destruction that pays homage to his native heritage of Puerto Rico.
The exhibition is being held at the Salon Louise-Hippolyte at the Hôtel de Paris.
Photo: Lombardisch Bartolomeo Rigossi da Gallarate 1476
SBM completes online gambling transfer for hefty profit
Société des Bains de Mer has confirmed the sale of its 47% stake in Betclic Everest Group, a French online gambling company, in a deal that garners a €710 million profit for Monaco’s largest company.
After announcing the upcoming sale on 11th May 2022, the Société des Bains de Mer and the Cercle des Etrangers in Monaco on Friday 1st July confirmed that its subsidiary, the Luxembourg company Monte-Carlo SBM International S.à.r.l. (SBM International), had transferred on 30th June 2022, by sale and contribution, the entire 47.30% stake it held in Betclic Everest Group (BEG) to Dutch company FL Entertainment N.V. (FL Entertainment).
As a result, FL Entertainment is now listed on the regulated market of Euronext Amsterdam, and SBM International holds 4.95% of the voting rights and 10.39% of the effective economic rights of this company.
“This transaction, which will result in a very significant favourable impact on the consolidated financial statements of the S.B.M. for the 2022/2023 financial year, gives SBM International the financial means to pursue its development strategy, while maintaining a significant stake in a world leader in entertainment operating in attractive market segments with strong growth potential,” said the company in a press statement.
The deal values SBM International’s stake in BEG at €850 million, compared with its initial financial investment of €140 million in 2009.
The transfer is part of a business cooperation agreement between Pegasus Entrepreneurial Acquisition Company Europe B.V. (Pegasus Entrepreneurs) and FL Entertainment, combining, according to SBM, two complementary and successful businesses in two attractive market segments with high growth potential: Banjay (the largest independent content production company in the world, operating over 120 production companies across 22 countries) and BEG.
“SBM International’s participation in this transaction will ensure the continuation of a successful partnership, undertaken with Stéphane Courbit (future chairman of the FL Entertainment board) since May 2009, when SBM International acquired its stake in BEG,” said the Monegasque company in May.
AS Monaco announced the creation of an ‘Elite Group’ on Thursday, which will see the club’s reserve side withdraw from the N2 and instead prioritise matches against some of Europe’s elite.
In the face of challenges facing many of Ligue 1’s reserve sides, Monaco have withdrawn theirs from the N2 in order to ensure the progression of their promising youth players. The competitiveness of the division is driving an increasing number of teams to integrate fully-fledged senior professionals into their sides, which naturally works to the detriment of the developing players.
These problems will only be exacerbated by a restructuring, which will see a reduction from five N2 groups to just three. This will once again create a drive to integrate more senior pros, and thus have an increasingly detrimental impact on youth development.
Monaco have been proactive in reacting to this threat. Instead of completely dismantling the reserve side as PSG did a few years ago, Monaco are adopting a change of strategy, which they believe will aid the evolution of some of the club’s hottest prospects.
An Elite Group has been created, which will encompass the U21 to U19 age groups, and will be managed by Damien Perrinelle. The former New York Red Bulls defender joined the club as an assistant manager in 2020, and although very much part of the first team set-up, he has been a reference point for youth players. Naturally therefore, the 38-year-old Frenchman has been chosen for this new role, which will strengthen and reinforce the links not only between the academy and the first team, but also partner club Cercle Brugge.
Monaco are a club that maintains a highly youth-oriented strategy. Many World Cup winners including Emmanuel Petit, David Trezeguet, Lillian Thuram, Thierry Henry and more recently Kylian Mbappé have passed through the academy on their way to enjoying trophy-laiden careers.
In order to ensure that the next generation have the same opportunity to follow in the footsteps of some of the greats, Monaco will this year compete in the Premier League International Cup, which comprises 12 Premier League academy sides, as well as 12 other elite European academy sides. There is also the potential for the side to face senior French clubs. The club sees this path as the most conducive to allowing the youth to integrate into a senior side that welcomed nine academy products in the last two years, and has been ranked by the CIES as one the strongest teams for developing talent in Europe.
Speaking in a press release, Director of youth development Pascal de Maesschalck said, “In the search for the best training path, this opportunity is the best way to develop the numerous connections in our current ecosystem, and bring AS Monaco and Cercle Brugge even closer together.”
Sporting director Paul Mitchell added, “Through this new approach, the club hopes to continue to reinforce the impact on the first team, just as the nine academy players, who have made their professional debuts, already have in the past two seasons.”
Amidst the troubling context of worsening conditions for youth sides participating in the N2 and below, Monaco have taken an alternative path in order to safeguard the progression of their academy, which remains the cornerstone of the project at the Principality club.
Alongside the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Prince Albert has made a call to action, asking around 100 high-level guests to lend their voices to the plight of the polar regions and support the Two Poles, a Common Future initiative.
The Prince Albert-led talk, Polar Oceans: Driving Force of the Global Ocean, at the United Nations Ocean Conference, held from 28th June to 1st July in Lisbon, drew over a hundred high-level guests to hear about the current situation in the polar regions.
Held by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, alongside the Oceanographic Institute and the Océano Azul Foundation, a panel of scientists, polar experts and artists came together to discuss the importance of the polar oceans as “vectors of global ocean and climate change, but also the need to contribute to better hear the messages of scientists.”
In his opening speech, Prince Albert said that, “the Poles constitute an essential link in the oceanic system (…) both as regards to oceanic balances, those of species, currents and major planetary fluxes, as well as with regard to the preservation of the climate. For my part, I would like to underline the extent to which this role is also political, as the Poles concentrate, like a laboratory, most of the questions that we face when it comes to acting for the oceans.”
He went on to explain that there are solutions, saying the “prospects for solutions, in particular through a certain number of lines of work whose effectiveness we know” are in sight.
The first session, moderated by Dr Renuka Badhe, Executive Secretary of the European Polar Board, recalled the importance of the Arctic and Southern Oceans on a global scale, but also underscored the need for collaborative and inclusive work. Teacher Michael Meredith, oceanographer and science leader at the British Antarctic Survey, said that there is only one ocean and it provides connectivity on a planetary scale. However, the circulation of ocean currents is already changing and will continue to change in the future with repercussions both on our climate and on ecosystems and global populations. Unfortunately, our current ability to predict the timing and magnitude of these changes in the Poles is still limited, which hampers the implementation of efficient climate policies.
Photo by Gaëtan Luci, Prince’s Palace
Initiating the Polar Ocean Action Plans as part of the UN Decade of Ocean Science is an important step, said Dr Sian Henley, Lecturer in Marine Science at the University of Edinburgh and Vice President of the Southern Ocean Observing System.
Next up, Florence Colleoni, Glaciologist and Paleoclimatologist at the National Institute of Oceanography and applied geophysics (OGS) and Richard Bellerby, Scientific Director for Climate and Oceans at the Norwegian Institute of Water Research, spoke about loss of sea ice, acidification and the effects of these two phenomena globally.
The second session moderated by Ashok Adicéam, Special Advisor to the French Ambassador for the Poles and Maritime Affairs, focused on mediation. The need to evoke emotion to convey messages about the urgency of the situation was addressed. Building stories that directly reach the hearts of audiences, they said, is a powerful way to bring about awareness and to get more active responses from the population.
The talk ended with a call to action, inviting all those assembled to mobilise and lend their voices to the plight of the polar regions. There were five specific ways suggested to do so, and were put into a single document, entitled Two Poles, a Common Future.
The points it touches on are addressing the fact that there is a problem, increasing investment in polar research, minimising pressure on the regions, building collaboration between the Arctic and Antarctic communities, and being a voice for the regions.
Photo of Prince Albert in Lisbon, credit: Sarah Del Ben
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