The great promenade show: Blackpool, UK (2002)
Public art commission program including artworks by Chris Knight, Tony Stallard, Bruce Williams, and Peter Freeman.
artdesigncafé | café library | Published 15 September 2009
This article first appeared in Sculpture magazine, 21(3), pp. 20-1 in 2002.
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Chris Knight. Desire (detail), (2001). Cor-Ten steel with stainless steel spikes, 7.2 meters high.
Sun, sea, sand, entertainment, sex, and sculpture. Strange bedfellows indeed, but this is what the Blackpool City Council and Manchester’s artist-led The Art Department have teamed up to deliver in a seaside art extravaganza dubbed “The Great Promenade Show.” With references to Blackpool’s colorful past and present, the organizers seem to have thought of everything. Sparkling rocks resemble glowing alien eggs, a rather suggestive work titled Desire sports menacing spikes, and, in May 2002, plans call for a giant mirror ball to inspire dancers—if England’s notorious lager louts don’t dismantle it first.
Situated 55 kilometers northwest of Manchester and facing the Irish Sea, the resort of Blackpool is billed as a family destination by day, with a zoo, aquarium, waxworks, roller coasters, and lots of kitschy shops. By night, it’s notorious for drag performances, UK- style drinking, and “dirty weekends.” As part of Blackpool’s image re-launching campaign, public art has become a key visitor attraction, with specially commissioned works distributed on the new two-kilometer-long South Shore promenade, which is built on sea defenses stretching away from the resort’s south side. Artists Liam Curtin and Wendy Jones and industrial designer Michael Trainor, directors of The Art Department, envision “an outdoor art gallery or a visual variety show, a program of ‘acts.’ Each one reflects an aspect of Blackpool’s diverse character, giving a new and creative attraction for Blackpool’s 11 million annual visitors.”
In 2000, artists were asked to submit proposals reflecting “Blackpoolness” and other criteria related to the site. The Blackpool Challenge Partnership, Blackpool Council, Lancashire Tourism Partnership, and the South Shore Hospitality Group invested £500,000 (about $725,000) toward the first phase consisting of six public works. Other designs have been short-listed for future installation.
The first work, the hyper-kinky Desire by Chris Knight, was installed on May 9, 2001. An imposing monolithic sculpture made of Cor-Ten steel slabs with stainless steel spikes, the piece refers to the underlying sexual tensions and frisson of a holiday in Blackpool. For Knight, “Desire is a large-scale sculptural representation of an ongoing theme that I have been exploring for a number of years—the seductive power of danger, the lure of the forbidden, and the contradiction that can be formed by an outwardly aggressive object. Is it attacking or protecting? Is it giving or taking? Passive or submissive?” The work also refers to Blackpool’s fetish scene.
Great promenade show - Blackpool: 1 | 2
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