You're Invited: Our Funeral </3

Wear black?

Friends, it's bittersweet to announce that we will be hosting a funeral for Monaco on Saturday, July 20, 2024, from 6 to 9 p.m. We will be closing our doors as an artist-run gallery space. Please join us in celebrating the vibrant life and legacy of our beloved haven for experimental and conceptual art. If you have anything to share regarding Monaco, its impact, its legacy, or its closing, the evening will be open for final thoughts.

For six years, Monaco functioned as more than just an exhibition space—it was a pristine incubator for artistic and curatorial development. Established in 2017 by a group of 12 artists, Monaco began with a radical principle: What if artists dictated programming and cultivated their own sense of commercial success in a gallery?

To these founding members, we owe a tremendous amount of gratitude:

Amanda Bowles, Bruce Burton, Sage Dawson, Kristin Fleischmann Brewer, José Garza, Meghan Grubb, Lyndon Barrois Jr.  / LAB:D, Addoley Dzegede / LAB:D, Allison Lacher, Gregg Louis, Cole Lu, Tim Portlock, Brea Youngblood / US English, James McNally / US English

Beginning with Grand Prix in 2017, over 138 artists have been shown in 74 exhibitions curated by our members and guests. Our membership has included 25 artists, each organizing at least one exhibition during their tenure at Monaco.

As these members have joined and left, each built upon the contributions of the last. Woven together, our efforts produced something much greater than any one artist could achieve on their own. Our spirit of collaboration, ability to set aside ego and personal agendas for a common goal, and self-lessness of contribution allowed us unprecedented success and… friendship <3. This is Monaco's true shared legacy.

While we would love to bask in our terminal uniqueness, the spirit of Monaco is an extension of Cherokee Street's larger history. We'd like to thank The Luminary, which owns the building in which Monaco is housed and has been tremendously supportive with its resources. We wouldn't exist without you.

We are forever indebted to this neighborhood and community, which have extended us their support over the past six years. There will be more spaces after us, and we look forward to uplifting them as the community has done for Monaco. We are just one of many.

The magic of Monaco was the spontaneous, effortless-seeming nature of its programming—a contagious sense of excitement, a fun feeling. While this was partially true, caring for a space and tending to its growth is a shared labor that extends beyond just the owners and members. It comes from our artists, collaborators, and, most importantly, you. Actions, some large but more often minute, reverberate and expound outward, impacting more deeply with time. 

As we close Monaco, we feel it's important to remember how lucky we are that, somehow, there are those ready to pick up where we leave off… It's the tenacity of the community that sustains this energy. We encourage you to do what you can with what you have – it goes further than you may realize. 

Lastly, we'd like to acknowledge and thank all of the members of Monaco, past and present:

Heather Bennett, Jen Colton, Vaughn Davis Jr., Janie Stamm, Howard Krohn, Amelia Jones / Flood Plain, Trina Van Ryn / Flood Plain, Liz Wolfson / Flood Pain, Marcus Stabenow / Visitor Assembly, Alyssa Knowling / Visitor Assembly, Yowshien Kuo, Edo Rosenblith, Kalaija Mallery, Marina May, Emily Mueller, Nick Schleicher

For more information about Monaco, visit: www.monacomonaco.us. For questions, contact info@monacomonaco.us.