The “Queen” of this year’s Monaco Yacht Show is set to be the enormous 115m Ahpo, a Lürssen megayacht featuring fuel cell technology. Here are some others that have made the list so far.
Top photo: Ahpo super yacht. Article by Cassandra Tanti and Stephanie Horsman
The mini-golf course in the Princess Antoinette Park has received an environmentally-friendly, heat-resistant makeover and is now open to the public once again.
Over the course of eight weeks, the entire ground surface around the clay playgrounds has been replaced by an ecological, recyclable, permeable and natural coating called Urbalith – a first in Monaco.
According to the Mairie, it consists of a cold mixture of aggregates and an organo-mineral binder, which effectively fights against urban heat islands. Another advantage is that the material is safe for humans and the environment because it does not contain any Volatile Organic Components (VOC).
During the month of August, the mini-golf course is open every day from 2pm to 7pm by reservation at +377 99 99 19 29 or on the La Boîte de Jeux website: https://www.laboitedejeux.net/minigolf.
Note, the mini-golf will be closed again for the week 7th to 15th August, while the Princess Antoinette Park will be open for the entire month of August.
Photo source: Mairie de Monaco
The end of pre-season fixtures, a contract extension and a new kit release: it has been a busy week at AS Monaco with their season opener against PSV Eindhoven looming.
With under a week until their Champions League tie against PSV, Monaco travelled to the UK to face Premier League side Southampton. In an open, end-to-end and exciting match, Monaco took the lead through a ferocious Aleksandr Golovin strike.
Adam Armstrong levelled the score just after the break after Alexander Nübel could only parry Mohamed Elyounoussi’s initial effort. Stuart Armstrong revered the deficit with a smart finish on the swivel before James Ward-Prowse completed the scoring with a driven finish on the break.
However, despite the 3-1 defeat there were a plethora of positives. Takumi Minamino excited, Golovin looks to have refound his best form at the perfect time and after nine months on the treatment table, Krépin Diatta finally made his long-awaited return. His presence will feel like a new signing, and compliments an already stacked attacking force.
Prior to their trip to St. Mary’s, Monaco drew against Inter Milan before travelling back to Portugal for two games against FC Porto. The Principality side won the first match against Porto’s B team 2-0 thanks to a brace from debutant Breel Embolo. That match was a chance to give minutes to some of the most promising products in Monaco’s academy, with five featuring during the tie.
In the second match on Saturday, Monaco were dealt their first defeat of pre-season. Both sides had chances in the first-half, but two of the best fell to Monaco. Takumi Minamino almost got his first goal in Monégasque colours, but he was denied by a fine stop from the goalkeeper, before Wissam Ben Yedder was also smartly denied.
Porto took the lead from the spot mid-way through the second-half before they doubled their lead just minutes later. Ben Yedder halved the deficit in the dying stages with a well-converted penalty. However, Monaco couldn’t muster an equaliser and the game finished 2-1.
Away kit revealed
In that fixture, Monaco debuted their new away kit for the upcoming season. For their trips away from the Stade Louis II, they will wear a slick, simplistic black and white jersey. As with the home kit, Kappa’s design incorporates the club slogan “Rise, Risk, Repeat” into a modern design. The club’s main partner ‘eToro’ also features on the torso. The club’s crest is fixed in silicone on the heart side, as is the Monégasque crown, which is on the back collar.
Aguilar extends
Ruben Aguilar’s form at the back end of last season has earned the right-back a contract extension. He is now tied down with the Principality side until 2025.
Since his arrival from Montpellier in 2019, Aguilar has made 100 appearances for Monaco, including 39 in all competitions last season. He also featured in nine out of the last ten fixtures of the Ligue 1 campaign: a run of games that propelled them to the podium.
The winter arrival of Vanderson seemingly spelled trouble for Aguilar, but it would be Djibril Sidibé who would see his game time heavily limited. Upon the expiry of his contract this summer, Sidibé left, meaning that Aguilar will contend with Vanderson for a starting spot in Clement’s side next season.
In a press release from the club, sporting director Paul Mitchell said, “In addition to his footballing qualities, Ruben has been an important player who is unanimously appreciated by all the staff and playing squad. His fighting spirit, his ability to put himself at the service of the team and professionalism can be a source of inspiration for the younger players.”
After over two months of waiting, Monaco will finally return to competitive action on Tuesday as they face PSV Eindhoven at the Stade Louis II in the first-leg of their Champions League play-off.
Season ticket holders go free
AS Monaco announced on Wednesday that season ticket holders will be able to access Tuesday’s match against PSV Eindhoven as if it was a regular Ligue 1 match. Ordinarily, season tickets only apply to league matches, but for this season’s curtain-raiser, all season ticket holders will be able to access the Stade Louis II freely. More information on Monaco season tickets can be found here.
The Grimaldi Forum is hosting the Monaco Crypto Summit this week, with speakers and special guests exploring trends in the crypto world as well as announcing new partnerships and products.
The crypto world has been on shifting sands this year, with a dramatic €1.951 trillion drop since its November 2021 high, sending several crypto lending platforms and hedge funds into bankruptcy. But with the dark comes the light, and others have found new opportunities in these new conditions, receiving funding and acquisitions that are springboards for new investors.
For those already involved or looking to learn more about the world of cryptocurrencies, the Monaco Crypto Summit is just the place to check out what the latest trends are and how to take advantage of them. Hosted at the Grimaldi Forum on Friday 29th July, the line-up will include some heavy hitters in the industry as well as some special invitees.
Organisers of the event have announced that HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco and Al Burgio, the founder of the DigitalBits blockchain, are amongst the evening’s expected special guests and speakers.
The theme of the Monaco Crypto Summit, sponsored by DigitalBits Foundation, is the future of cryptocurrency. The event is expected to create a big buzz with, in addition to Al Burgio, speakers such as Brittany Kaiser, co-founder of Own Your Data Foundation, Kory Hoang, founder and chief executive officer of Stably, Lauren Bissel, founder and CEO of Immutable Industries, Bryan Talebi, founder and CEO of Ahura AI, and many others in attendance.
Burgio posted a recent community update, saying, “There are certain confidential elements under development that are due to be made public on the 29th of July,” adding an air of excitement to the event.
The event will be capped with a VIP dinner that will be hosted by the Yacht Club of Monaco where a celebration is in store for the new partnership with the Monaco virtual racing circuit.
Monaco has been hosting a number of crypto events this year, including CoinAgenda, a global conference series connecting blockchain and cryptocurrency investors with start-ups since 2014, back in May. Stars’n’Bars is also hosting a Crypto Meetup on 30th July, where organisers are inviting people to come and talk about crypto-related experiences and thoughts, including market trends and NFTs.
For those who can’t make the event, theCUBE will be covering it live and will offer on-demand streaming afterwards. To register, go to https://events.cube365.net/monaco/crypto-summit
For more info on the actual event, visit https://monacocryptosummit.com/
Photo by Monaco Life
Hauser and Wirth’s new exhibition by Paul McCarthy is a timely reflection on the links between violence, depravity and masculinity, despite the 20 years that have passed since its inception.
‘Paul McCarthy. Pirates Stew Pot’ at Hauser and Wirth Monaco marks the 20th anniversary of McCarthy’s Pirate Project. One of his most important bodies of work, the show highlights the artist’s dedication to this theme across multiple strands since 2001. Originally stemming from Paul McCarthy and his son Damon’s fascination with the Disneyland amusement park attraction ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, the selection of works includes sculpture, drawing, video and photography, and explores the complex universe of the pirate theme.
McCarthy’s pirate world offers an allegory of society, focusing on a range of unrestrained behaviours or forms of resistance, from untrammelled greed, rampant commercialisation and social ostentation to sadism, perversion, anarchism and corruption. Two decades after its inception, the work continues to be relevant in the context of current global conflicts for the way it addresses the links between violence, depravity and masculinity.
“Paul thinks it is very relevant to show the exhibition at this time because of the context of the war on Ukraine,” Gregoire Schnerb tells Monaco Life. “The series started in 2001 when George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq, and throughout the work of Paul, there’s been a denunciation of the American society and all its kitsch; all the positive images it conveys and the parallel with war. On the other hand, there is the image of celebrity, beauty, and wealth, contrasted with imperialism and violence.”
The exhibition in Monaco starts where the project began, with a series of large-scale Pirate Drawings including‘Large Pirate Drawing (Poop Deck)’ and ‘Cut off the Lips’ (2001). These works, McCarthy says, lay bare the psychological sources of this wide-ranging project about the imaginary world of pirate yarns. Enormous sheets of paper serve to gather associations and mould thoughts into pictorial form. Combining charcoal, pencil and marker with collage, McCarthy examines the flow of images from the consumer world and the porn industry.
“It is the second exhibition that we have here in our Monaco space and it is important for us to show the work of Paul McCarthy, to show exactly what the gallery is about,” adds Schnerb. “McCarthy is a central artist and part of our DNA. The artists that we show are linked, and he is representative of the values that we have at the gallery.”
Utilising playfully oversized characters and objects, sculptures such as ‘Piggies, Painted’ (2008/2018) and ‘Paula Jones, Painted’ (2007/2018) merge the fantasy Pirate world with figures from the real worlds of politics, philosophy, science, art, literature, film and television. McCarthy locates the traumas lurking behind the American Dream, presented as a Hollywood or Disney-style stage set gone wrong, and identifies their counterparts in the art historical canon.
The exhibition also celebrates ‘Caribbean Pirates,’ an immense two-volume artist’s book by Paul and Damon McCarthy, released in 2019. It details the ongoing endeavour of the Pirate Project, an acclaimed example of McCarthy’s multidisciplinary practice, through photographic documentation and production stills of the performance alongside a text by the artist and an essay by John C. Welchman.
The exhibition will run until the end of summer.
Click on the images below to see more works from Paul McCarthy’s Pirates Stew Pot…
All photos by Cassandra Tanti, Monaco Life
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