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Art Gallery

Presentation:
version 2000

Presentatie:
versie 2000.

 

Number of versions: 7

Edition: July 3, 2005


Maxi lopers in Philadelphia.Subject:: Lifesized Monopoly tokens - Your Move
Place: Philadelphia - USA -1996
Artists: Daniel Martinez, Renee Petropoulis and Roger White
Web site: www.thebiggamehunter.com/gallery/philadelphia

Penny Melling & Bruce Whitehill frolic in Philadelphia's Municipal Services Building Plaza along the John F. Kennedy Boulevard between 15th and Broad Streets, where lifesized Monopoly tokens and other game pieces abound.
See for more pictures of these tokens taken by Bruce Whitehill his above mentioned site.


Your Move is a collaborative work by Daniel Martinez, Renee Petropoulis and Roger White consisting for the most part of over-sized Monopoly, chess, domino, and other board game pieces (bolted down to prevent over-eager game players casting them into traffic). 

 

 

Caravaggio saw disciples playing Monopoly!Subject: Painting "The Monoply-players"©
               (click on picture for a picture of 1828x1188 pixels)

In the Dutch newspaper Het Parool of Thursday, December 17, 1998 was the article "Euro makes holy houses and hotels tumble - An improved Monopoly game", by Hans van Maanen. (See his own site: http://www.vanmaanen.org/hans/artikelen/monopoly.html). This article showed a large picture of "The Monopoly-players", a picture that clearly goes to show that monopoly was already played in the 16th century. So that asked for closer investigation and this is the story:

The leading players are some young Italian painter called Caravaggio (1573 - 1610) and the present-days Dutch artist Joost Veerkamp.
Initially Veerkamp made parodies and changes on famous paintings, of which finally the designs of his stamps arose. So the stamp with "The Monopoly-players" arose from the painting "Supper at Emmaus", where Jesus blesses supper for his disciples. The second stamp of the small series of two was made after the painting "The Potato Eaters" by Vincent van Gogh.
Since 1988 Veerkamp yearly issues a number of "stamps", who can be collected in a loose-leaf album. These albums are still available with:

The Monopoly players

Joost Veerkamp
Voorweg 7
2103 SP HEEMSTEDE
THE NETHERLANDS

tel: + 31 - 23 - 5295149
internet:
http://www.veerkamp.nl/stamps.html

Meeting of the maffia.

More about Caravaggio in: http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~malek/Caravaggio2.html
and about Vincent van Gogh in: http://www.mcs.csuhayward.edu/~malek/Impression/Gogh.html

 

 

Broadway Boogie-Woogie 1949.Subject: Three Hotels on Broadway Boogie-Woogie-1949
Artist: Mark Caywood - USA - 2001
Dimensions of the painting: 56" x 46" = 1.42 x 1.17 m

Mark Caywood - Fort Worth, TEXAS, USA---is obviously a great artist with an incredible sense of humor. He started his satiric web-site, Caywood's Art Gallery, in 2001, and gave it the subtitle "Art for International Museums, Collectors, Galleries and Dealers". Amongst the great number of different subjects he denounces is the oil on canvas painting by Piet Mondriaan, inspired by Monopoly, which he describes as follows (see: http://home.earthlink.net/~fwbull/sale_11.html):

"This piece, part of a series Mondrian painted to honor America's favorite board game, was lost for many years. In the early 1960s, a janitor found it while cleaning out a storage closet in The Playboy Club, which had taken over the space previously occupied by Mondrian's studio.
In this colorful composition, the artist appears to be making a comment on the pivotal aspect of American corporate economic strength, ie."Monopoly", while at the same time, his innovative placement of various street names and sales prices implies a profound indictment of urban exploitation perpetrated against the poor."

 

Graffopoly - 2001.Subject: Graffopoly
Artists: Unknown graffiti-sprayers - New York - 2001
Dimensions of the artwork: 
                                    abt. 5 x 25 m

I was pointed to this maxi sized artwork by Matthijs Hoogenboom from Amsterdam.
This spot is known as the so called "Harlem Graffiti Hall of Fame".
The wall is an innerwall of a school complex in Manhattan, the Harlem district, on the Park Avenue and 106th Street. The artworks of this "Hall" are yearly over-painted in the scope of a graffiti event, so meanwhile Graffopoly does not exist anymore. A pitty!

 

 

Monopoly Haagsche Bluf-May 2002.Subject: Monopoly Haagsche Bluf - wall painting in The Hague - NL
Artist: Carl Palm - Den Haag - May 2002
URL: www.carlpalm.nl
Dimensions of the board: 4 x 4 m

There is a modern kind of almshouse in the centre of The Hague - Holland, called Haagsche Bluf. This shopping mall is owned by the real estate developer "Geste" in The Hague, who practised a beautiful combination of modern style and old façades in order to give an international character to these streets.

The owner of the Haagsche Lounge restaurant (www.haagschelounge.nl) together with the artist came with the splendid idea to embellish a plain wall next to his terrace with a blown up Monopoly game board naturally with the real estates of the "Geste"group, because "Geste" does own more streets and a number of properties around the Haagsche Bluf area. It is obvious that Monopoly came in mind  because it is a matter of buying and selling, money and power. Also on this game board the sequence of the streets is such that the "cheap"streets are in at the start of the game and the "expensive" streets at the end. The choice was (most probably unintentionally) made for the Parker/Hasbro design, i.e. with the black engines on the station spaces, the blue treasure chest and the gold ring on Super Tax. From Start on the spaces are:

Achterom - Algemeen Fonds - Gortstraat - Inkomstenbelasting - Station Zuid - Nieuwstraat - Kans - Raamstraat - Wagenstraat - Slechts op bezoek - Fluwelen Burgwal - Electriciteitsbedrijf - Prinsengracht - Jan Hendrikstraat - Station West - Kettingstraat - Algemeen Fonds - Herengracht - Grotemarkt - Vrij Parkeren - Hooikade - Kans - Denneweg -Noordeinde - Station Noord - Lange Poten - Spui - Waterleiding - Dagelijkse Groenmarkt - Naar de Gevangenis - Venestraat - Vlamingstraat - Algemeen Fonds - Haagsche Bluf - Station Oost - Kans - Spuistraat - Extra Belasting and Lange Voorhout (where a number of embassies are established).

It is remarkable the artist took the liberty (and no doubt the spectator agrees) to readably write the texts with the jail's rascal and the red Free Parking car, while one don't need to turn his head to read the street names on side 1 and 3.

The stations are not those of The Hague.

Only 2 of the 3 yellow streets of the Parker/Hasbro edition also appear on this board.

Indeed the prices are in Euro's, however the values are those of the 1996 and earlier issues, so a factor 100 higher than of the actual standard editions.

 



Mondriopoly - Oct.2002.Subject: Mondriopoly - Dutch board 1943
              
(click on picture for a picture of 664x670 pixels)
Artist: Nick Blackburn - London - Oct.2002
Dimensions of the game board: 35 x 35 cm

On his versatile web-site http://www.snap-dragon.com/index.html Nick Blackburn - London also made a comprehensive chapter called Mondrian Homage. It contains paintings of a great variety of subjects painted the Mondriaan way.

Being a great admirer of the Dutch painter Piet Mondriaan as well as a Monopoholic  he asked me for a copy of an early Dutch Monopoly gameboard. And next is what he made of it. 

Nick Blackburn's business card.

 

Aaron's work of art-2004.Edition: Dutch Monopoly
Maker: Aaron Wrighting -2004
Dimensions of the board: 75 x 52 x 5,3 cm/ 7 kg
The game:
This very special product of Aaron Wrighting -NL definitely belongs to this Art Galery, because he considers it a work of  art that has to be shown on the wall. 

Aaron made this very luxury board of unusual dimensions and weight within 60 hours. For its design he looked at the Franklin Mint  mahogany wood edition on a pedestal of 1992 (see "Game Editions") and to Parker/Hasbro's  60th anniversary issue (the gold box) of 1995. Hence the holografic diamond on the felt cloth of the countersank midfield of the rectangular board.

Furthermore Aaron tells about this board, of which he is very willing to make copies "to measure" on demand:

The board is made rectangular because a painting most times also is. So this is a work of art that can be played on as well.

The spaces along the short sides do have the same dimensions as those of the Parker/Hasbro game board and consequently the spaces on side 1 and 3 are too wide.

The partition lines between the spaces are inserted aluminum rods wrapped around with gold tape.

De straatnamen zijn met een label-tang gemaakt op goud-band.

Friction characters have been used for the other characters.

The license plate of the car on Free Parking, viz AW-19-68, has everything to do with the maker of this board.

There is a "real" diamond" in the gold ring of the "Super Tax" field.

There are 2 trays of mahogany timber, with felt at the bottom, for the cards and 1 for the banker's property deeds.

The somewhat unhappy looking man behind the bars and the car have been painted by hand.

The cards and property deeds, money, tokens, houses and hotels and dice are those from the gold box.

 

Your comments and/or additional informations will be highly appreciated! Only then this catalogue remains interesting! So please do send a message to:
Uw opmerkingen en/of aanvullingen worden zeer op prijs gesteld! Zo blijft deze catalogus actueel! Neemt u dan ook gaarne contact op met:

albert c. veldhuis
Zoetermeer - The Netherlands
e-mail: monopoly@muurkrant.nl
(Nederlands,,Deutsch,Français,Magyar)