Grundy Art Gallery is pleased to be hosting Nina Könnemann’s Pleasure Beach (2001) from 8 – 25 May 2020.
Pleasure Beach was filmed on the day of the Könnemann’s first visit to Blackpool in 2000 and is typical of her video works from the early 00s, characterized by their ‘unmediated look at phenomena of the postmodern amusement society’.
Könnemann’s hand-held camera captures her fascination with the many all-female groups of fun-seekers moving along the Promenade – often exaggerating gender stereotypes to the point of ‘travesty’ – where the greatest pleasure seemed to be had between venues, as groups pass each other – mixing, mingling and moving on.
Pleasure Beach was filmed at the very end of the summer season of 2000. On that particular night a storm hit Blackpool amplifying and distorting the hysteria, the light and the sounds.
Showing Pleasure Beach now, in this time travel restrictions and social distancing, with Blackpool’s streets quiet, it’s shops shuttered, and pubs and clubs closed, Könnemann’s film reminds us of, and amplifies the vivacity of Blackpool and indeed social spaces across the world.
THIS STREAMING SESSION IS NOW CLOSED. THANK YOU FOR WATCHING.
Nina Könnemann (b. Bonn, Germany 1971) is an artist living and working in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions and screenings include Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Gaga Gallery/Reena Spaulings, Los Angeles; Centre Pompidou, Paris/KW ICA, Berlin; Toronto International Film Festival; Taylor Macklin, Zurich; Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg (DE); Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (GB); Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Portikus, Frankfurt am Main.
Könnemann has a long-standing relationship with Blackpool, presenting work at Grundy Art Gallery in the group exhibition Extra-Ordinary (2010) and curating the exhibition Mass Photography: Blackpool through the camera (2011). She was in residence in Blackpool in 2016, at Abingdon Studios as part the WORK/LEISURE programme, undertaking research for her work Free Wi-fi, later presented at Oststation, Wien (2016) and in further iterations at Museum Brandhorst, München; Centre Pompidou, Paris/KW, Berlin (both 2017) and Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2018).
Grundy would like to thank Nina Könnemann for her generosity in making this video available to view.
Nina Könnemann: Pleasure Beach was initiated by Tom Ireland as part of a curatorial secondment in 2020.