A sculpture fashioned in a fountain and installed on the Larvotto Promenade in 1970 by artist Guy Lartigue is back in its rightful place after a three-year restoration lovingly undertaken by his son.
Back in 2019, in the midst of the renovation project that was revamping the Larvotto Promenade, an iconic piece of art disappeared. Now, three years later, it has been restored and reinstalled at its original location, at the end of the promenade.
The sculpture, created by artist Guy Lartigue, was commissioned in 1969 by Prince Rainier III as a tribute to Princess Grace. The resulting piece was a beautiful, eye-catching metallic sculpture with a circular basin nine metres in diameter, with columns 12 metres high, including a buffet 17 metres long, 3.5 metres wide and 4 metres from above.
Fast-forward 50 years and the Larvotto beach frontage was up for a facelift. As the project started in earnest, the government contacted Lartigue’s son Brice, who took charge of restoring the piece.
It took two months to dismantle the fountain, with each piece being labelled and numbered in order to store them properly, giving Lartigue a chance to restore smaller pieces individually. He used painstaking care, airbrushing or descaling the pieces in baths with environmentally friendly products, such as alcohol vinegar.
Once the makeover was complete, it was time to put the pieces back together in its rightful place, reattaching it to the pumps that motor the fountain. The sculpture is now almost unrecognisable, with its beautiful aqua hues as opposed to the rusty brown that it had become.
The fountain was officially unveiled on Wednesday 18th May by Prince Albert II, alongside Minister of State Pierre Dartout, National Council President Stéphane Valeri and other officials.
The restoration was funded by L’Anse du Portier and Patrice Pastor.
As Monte-Carlo Fashion Week celebrates its 10th anniversary this week, the event has become a yardstick for the sustainable and ethical fashion industries, offering accolades to brands that have stood out for giving clients spectacular creations, and doing it in an environmentally friendly way.
Monte-Carlo Fashion Week (MCFW) is back to business as usual this year after two years of pandemic-imposed restrictions, featuring in-person catwalk shows, competitions, conferences, networking opportunities and a gala event all in the course of a few short days.
The MCFW, which has been going strong for a decade now, is running from 23rd to 27th May coinciding with the excitement of Grand Prix, but for fashion-lovers, cars will be the furthest thing from their minds as models strut their stuff on the catwalks showing off the latest in sustainable fashion.
“The spotlight will naturally be on the catwalks, which will host next season’s highly anticipated collections from local and international brands, guided by the red thread of an ethical, recognisable and highly conscious style,” say the organisers.
Pieces from Beach & Cashmere Monaco, owned by Federica Nardoni Spinetta, who is also the President and Founder of the Monegasque Fashion Chamber and of the MCFW, will be available to see at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo’s Salle Garnier. Other brands include Thalie Paris and its eco-sustainable bags, a collaboration between Marcos Marin’s optical art with Diana Mara, and Ramzen, the Italian brand created by the Saudi designer Abdul Al-Romaizan.
The highlight of Monte-Carlo Fashion Week will be the MCFW Fashion Awards ceremony at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo on 24th May, where various international figures in fashion will receive prizes. The winners will be chosen by a jury composed of Sara Sozzani Maino, Federica Nardoni Spinetta, Terrence Bray and Matteo Ward.
Other highlights of the week include the Amber Lounge show on Friday showcasing Pauline Ducruet’s brand Alter, Arloe Swimwear collections, Gina Frias’ elegant dresses, Dea Madre’s feminine pieces and local Monegasque brand Crisoni.
Grimaldi Forum hosting two unique evenings of pure fun
Two spectacular events are coming to the Grimaldi Forum in June featuring music, dance, acrobatics and magic.
The Grimaldi Forum is playing host to two shows sure to be on the calendars of anyone who likes a bit of fun in their lives.
The first, coming on 3rd June at 8:30pm, The Virtuoses, is being billed as a musical treat with magic, but is actually so much more. Two pianists take to the stage and – without a single word being uttered – mix music, contemporary magic and “Chapinesque” clowning into an evening of laughs, music and surprises.
The two players have the talent and dexterity of classical pianists, the comedic timing of silent movie actors, and magical skills worthy of Harry Potter. The pair play impressive four-handed duets that are enhanced with “magical transformations” that take the audience to another world filled with laughter and fun.
Musicians, actors, and magicians all rolled into one, the irresistible Virtuoses “achieve the seemingly impossible, marrying wild imagination with seriousness and making great music come alive for everybody. This is a dream-like celebration in music carried off infectious enthusiasm by these two dynamic pianists.”
Next up is a charity event benefitting Ukraine entitled My Land, on 10th June at 8pm. This circus-dance show features seven Circassian artists who, combing art, music, theatre and dance, reveal their deep connection to their country of origin.
These seven Ukrainian acrobats push the limits of the body whilst “recounting” through movement tales of their lives, loves, traditions and hopes using music drawn from Ukrainian, Moldavian and Tatar folk tunes.
Directed and choreographed by Bence Vagi, founder and artistic director of the Hungarian contemporary circus company Recirquel, My Land has been a phenomenal success since it first premiered in 2018 at the Fringe Festival in Edinburg. After more than 200 performances across Europe, this show takes on a special dimension with the current war in Ukraine.
All proceeds from the show will be donated by the Grimaldi Forum Monaco to the Monegasque Red Cross for Ukraine.
Feature photo of Les Virtuoses bulles by Jérôme Pouille
Prince’s Foundation launches new Forests and Communities Initiative
The latest initiative supported by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation will help indigenous peoples and local communities save their forests from decimation and, in turn, help restore the planet.
The forests are the world’s lungs, offering a vast array of ecological services, not least of which is converting carbon dioxide to oxygen. They are home to an enormous number of plant and animal life and are essential in the fight against desertification, climate change and soil erosion, as well as being a kind of ground zero for fresh water supplies.
Despite all of this, the forests are being decimated at an unprecedented rate, with the last decade seeing exponential destruction and pressure. To help combat and hopefully eventually even reverse the damage, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law, the International Ranger Federation, and Global Forest Coalition are joining forces to support the people who can make a difference on the ground to protect forest ecosystems, namely the indigenous peoples and local communities living in these areas.
On International Biodiversity Day, 22nd May, they launched the Forests and Communities Initiative (FCI), which has a mission “to support conservation of forest ecosystems through the action of indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLC) and through the development of a supporting network of actors providing a multi-disciplinary set of expertise,” according to the organisation.
It is currently targeting five geographic regions: Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, where they will carry out a variety of tasks. These include conservation-driven efforts, particularly in primary forests and zones with low anthropic activities, taking a holistic approach to preserve these natural ecosystems, working with and respecting the knowledge of the IPLCs and using their knowledge to full effect, practicing and promoting science and evidence-based methodologies to ensure effective implementation, and fostering open dialogues, information-sharing and best practices exchanges to advance understanding.
Photo source: Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation
Monacair is one of three regional helicopter companies to have its services taken over by US group Blade Air Mobility, which will begin operations with a seven-minute Nice to Monaco transfer during this week’s Monaco Grand Prix.
It was announced recently that the routes and heliports of Monacair, Héli Sécurité and another unnamed European operator have been bought out by US group Blade Air Mobility for a reported €48 million.
“These three acquisitions are core to our strategy of leveraging our asset-light model to aggregate the premier use cases for urban air mobility,” Blade CEO Rob Wiesenthal said in a statement. “As a result, Blade has now amassed what we believe to be the most valuable routes in the world.
“Adding this formidable presence in Europe to our existing operations across the greater New York area, Vancouver, and India, is a critical step in our expansion.”
Monacair runs 50 scheduled flights daily between Nice Airport and Monaco, while Héli Sécurité has 16 flights that cover St. Tropez and the Swiss Alps. An industry source in Europe identified the third company as Cannes-based Azur Hélicoptère, whose investors include Oaktree Capital Management, but this has not yet been confirmed.
The local companies will keep their fleets, with Blade as their sole customer using an “asset light strategy”. This will allow the entities to transfer capabilities, such as people, processes and technology to new owners in order to allow existing businesses to transfer fixed costs to a variable cost structure.
Blade calls itself a “technology-powered, global urban air mobility platform committed to reducing travel friction by enabling cost-effective air transportation alternatives to some of the most congested ground routes in the U.S. and abroad”.
By-the-seat flights for the Monaco Grand Prix start at $220.
The group has secured prominent investors for the deal, including Cathie Wood from Ark Invest and Ferrari shareholder John Elkann.
“The whole business model behind Blade is to accumulate the best routes, infrastructure, and customers in the world who are currently traveling by helicopter . . . and then providing those businesses with a seamless transition for electric vertical aircraft,” CEO Rob Wiesenthal told Financial Times.
Blade has sought to put its brand on popular routes in advance of the arrival of a new generation of electric vertical aircraft, called eVOTLs or EVAs, and have contracted four EVA developers to start delivering new choppers in 2024.
Opportunist Verstappen wins as Leclerc’s machinery fails him
A mid-race mechanical failure ruined Charles Leclerc’s otherwise flawless weekend in Spain, as Max Verstappen took victory on Sunday and moved into pole position in the drivers’ standings.
Leclerc looked to be cruising to the chequered flag in Barcelona. Having taken pole, he also had the race pace to match as he cut off a Verstappen charge off the line, before growing a lead. Leclerc’s Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz didn’t have such a serene run off the line as he immediately lost places to George Russell and Carlos Perez, who both collided at the first corner, without consequence for either driver.
Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, had a disastrous start, colliding with the Haas of Kevin Magnussen, receiving a puncture, and limping back to the pits in 19th position. Sainz’s poor start was then compounded by a spin on lap seven, which demoted him to 11th.
Leclerc’s lead looked definitive on lap nine when Verstappen spun at the same corner as Sainz had just two laps earlier, which saw him fall behind Russell and team-mate Perez. With Verstappen out of the picture, Leclerc grew a lead of 30 seconds before coming into the pits.
It was looking like a comfortable victory for Leclerc, which would not only substantially grow his championship lead but also deal a psychological blow to his rivals before he heads to his home race in Monaco next week.
That all changed at the halfway mark, as Leclerc slowed on the track, the terminal words, “I have lost power” confirming his retirement – the face of the race, and of the championship, significantly altered by a moment of cruel misfortune.
Verstappen was now reinvigorated and smelt his chance. He immediately went for the undercut. Putting on the softs, he began his charge into the lead. He comfortably took Valterri Bottas to claim third, and following pit stops from Russell and Perez, he took the lead.
Verstappen still needed to make another stop, but came out ahead of Russell. Having closed in on Perez, his teammate let him breeze past to take the lead of the race; a leap which he never looked like relinquishing.
Perez held onto second and Russell onto third. The remarkable drive of the day belonged to Hamilton, whose charge from the back of the pack was rewarded with a fifth-place finish. He had temporarily passed Sainz, but due to a technical issue, had to ease off at the end of the race, allowing the Spaniard, competing in his home race, to re-take fourth.
Photo of Charles Leclerc waving to fans at the Spanish Grand Prix, source Scuderia Ferrari Press Office
Leclerc, for the first time this season, has now, through no fault of his own, ceded his championship lead. Verstappen now leads by six points from Leclerc, and the Dutch driver has four wins to Leclerc’s two.
However, post-race Leclerc was determined to stay positive. “So far this year, the team has been doing an incredible job in terms of reliability. Of course, this one hurts because we were in front all weekend and worked really well,” the Monégasque began. “I know that things like this can happen sometimes and in moments like these, it is important to look at the positives. Our pace was very strong in qualifying and in the race and the feeling in the car was really good,” said Leclerc.
But things aren’t all positive. Ferrari may have had pace here in Spain, but it is important to profit from it when the pendulum seems to swing between the Red Bull and Ferrari on a weekly basis. The Red Bull, as they have throughout the season thus far, will likely hit back in the next races, as they bring upgrades of their own. The Mercedes, meanwhile, looks like it may finally be joining the party. They may not be immediately in the hunt for race wins, but at the least, they are challengers for the podium positions. Russell in particular is only 30 points behind Leclerc, whilst you would expect the experience of Hamilton to allow him to close in on the leading pack.
To re-affirm himself as the title favourite, a solid showing on home turf is a must for Leclerc, and he is relishing the task, despite lacking luck at Monte-Carlo in recent times. “Next up is my home race in Monaco, so I’m really looking forward to it and I hope that it will be a good one,” concluded Leclerc.
Stay tuned to Monaco Life as we interview Charles Leclerc ahead of the weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix!
Photos source: Scuderia Ferrari Press Office
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