Alec Monopoly’s ice sculpture at Eden Gallery on Friday, Feb. 19. Courtesy Eden Gallery
Alec Monopoly with his ice sculpture at Eden Gallery on Friday, Feb. 19. Courtesy Eden Gallery
Alec Monopoly’s ice sculpture at Eden Gallery on Friday, Feb. 19. Courtesy Eden Gallery
The street artist known as Alec Monopoly visited Aspen’s Eden Gallery over the weekend, seeing for the first time in-person the new gallery that has made Monopoly’s wealth-centered artwork a centerpiece of its two-story showroom and more than 7,000 square feet of exhibition space.
“I’m blown away,” he said Friday at Eden, sporting sneakers tagged with his name and dollar signs and wearing a black face mask (as a street artist, he was well-prepared for face covering mandates amid the novel coronavirus pandemic: Until recently, he wore a mask at all times in public to hide his identity from authorities who might arrest him for vandalism).
The street artist Alec Monopoly, whose cartoonish depictions of wealth culture and conspicuous consumption are a centerpiece of the Eden Gallery’s holdings, visited the gallery over the weekend.
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on Friday, Nov. 27, 2020. (Kelsey Brunner/The Aspen Times)
Operating a retail store in a mountain resort town such as Aspen is hard enough with offseasons to contend with, plus elevated rents. Throw in a pandemic and it adds a whole other level of complexity to business.
Luckily the locally owned shops in Aspen, peppered among recognizable big-name brands on storefronts, are a resilient bunch and spent the summer and fall months adjusting to new rules and restrictions put in place due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
“What I would say about the summer and fall was that it was unexpectedly OK,” said Aspen Emporium and Flying Circus owner Shae Singer. “I was very thankful that it was as busy as it was.”