Artist Monique Lassooij once tried to sneak into Miami Marine Stadium. The historic concert venue where legends such as Ray Charles, Queen, Jimmy Buffett, and the Rolling Stones once performed has been shuttered since Hurricane Andrew struck it in 1992, but that didn’t stop graffiti artists from making their mark on the space.
Lassooij moved to Miami from the Netherlands in 2006, well after the stadium became an underground artist haven. A few years later, she wanted to join the scene. “I knew a lot of the artists that went in there to spray-paint,” she says. “Me and a friend wanted to get into the stadium one night to do our own little tags. I wanted to make a face on one of the chairs.”
A fence blocked one side of the stadium. When they reached it, her friend jumped over first. Lassooij climbed up and was leaning halfway over the top when she heard someone clearing his throat behind her. “I look through the fence, through my legs, and I see a uniform. And he says to me: ‘If you come down on my side, I will say nothing. If you go to the other side, I have to call the cops,’” she says, laughing. “So I just went down. The next day we found out that on the other side, there was no fence.”
Read the full story at Miami New Times.
Photos by Mark DeAngelo, via Miami New Times
