BLACKPOOL.- Jonathan Baldock and Emma Hart’s exhibition LOVE LIFE returns in dramatically expanded form for ACT II at the Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool, following ACT I at PEER in London last year. In the artists’ most ambitious collaboration to date, Baldock and Hart have radically re-imagined the traditional seaside show of Punch and Judy. Through ceramic sculptures, videos, installations and other works, the artists transform the puppet booth living quarters of the pair into an oversized and darkly humorous place where the ever-present threat of violence acquires a new resonance in an era of cyber-bullying.

In Blackpool, LOVE LIFE fills the Edwardian rooms of the Grundy with a series of new works and displays that draw on the history of popular culture in the town. In one new work, Baldock and Hart have commissioned Blackpool Council’s Illuminations Department, who manufacture and install the town’s celebrated annual six-mile long lighting display, to create a giant new sculpture in the form of a thumb. Alongside this will be a new film and a special display of vintage Punch and Judy puppets on loan from the town’s extensive collections.

In the largest gallery space, visitors will encounter a set of Punch and Judy ‘interiors’ installed like room sets in an Ideal Home exhibition, including a giant infant with Cyclops head sat in a large pink baby walker, an oven stacked with anthropomorphic pots and pans, and a washing machine spewing out its contents. Nearby, a string of sausages spells out ‘YOUR BACK’ and ceramic speech bubbles hang off the walls, reminiscent of Punch’s aquiline profile. All this is accompanied by the melodramatic strains of Jon and Emma (2016), Baldock and Hart’s collaborative soundtrack. The song is adapted from John and Marsha, the comedian and puppeteer Stan Freberg’s 1951 cult record parodying soap opera dialogue.

LOVE LIFE: Act III opens at De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-sea in October, and will include further new works.

LOVE LIFE is a collaboration between PEER, Grundy Art Gallery and De La Warr Pavilion supported by Arts Council England through the National Lottery.

Emma Hart lives and works in London. In 2016 she won the sixth Max Mara Art Prize for Women and from 12 July to 3 September 2017 will present Mamma Mia!, a new large-scale installation at Whitechapel Art Gallery. The commission is the result of the artist’s six month bespoke residency which began following her award in June 2016 in three Italian cities: Milan, Todi and Faenza. In 2015 Hart was also supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Artists. She has exhibited extensively across the UK and Europe including at Camden Arts Centre, Folkestone Triennial, Whitechapel Gallery and La Galerie CAC Noisy Le Sec, France.

Jonathan Baldock (b.1980) is London based artist and has exhibited internationally including solo shows at SPACE, London; OneWork Gallery, Vienna; Nicelle Beauchene, New York; Kunstvereniging Diepenheim (NL); The Apartment, Vancouver; Wysing Arts Centre; Cambridge; Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff; and Mansfeldský Palác, AMoYA, Prague. Group exhibitions include: Fondazione Memmo, Rome; Hull Maritime Museum; The Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai ; The Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, The Mackintosh Museum, Glasgow and The Arp Museum, Rolandseck. Baldock’s current exhibitions, My biggest fear is that someone will crawl into it continues at SPACE Studios, London until 25 June 2017, and There’s No Place Like Home continues at Cafe Gallery Projects, London until 30 July.

Baldock and Hart met on a residency at Wysing Arts Centre and have collaborated on projects ever since, including SUCKERZ in 2015 at L'etrangere, London.