Pineapple Black
Contemporary Art Space.
After working on the Middlesbrough Art Weekender in 2018 an opportunity came up to take over one of the spaces that had been used during the event. The Old New Look store at the Hill St shopping centre had been taken over by East St Arts, an arts charity based out of Leeds. I got in touch with them to say that I would be interested in not just having an exhibition within the space, but taking on the space full time. They asked for a proposal, I wrote one, and they liked it!
Now I knew that it would be to much to take on such a space by myself, so I got in touch with fellow local artist Bobby Benjamin, who had previously shared a studio with and had run both the House of Blah Blah and Dovetail Joints. We met over a beer in a local pub, I showed him some photos of the space on my phone, we chatted, discussed ideas – and then just a few days later picked up the keys! At this point, Bobby hadn’t even been in the space, we had no name for it, no solid idea of what or how we were going to do it, but we knew if we could pull it off it could be something amazing!
In January 2019 we opened with our first exhibition ‘Grand Opening’ which showed the work of local artists with a connection to Middlesbrough that we had asked to be part of the show, ranging from students to professional with 30+ years experience. We were blown away by the response. Over 300 people came to the opening night, drank the bar dry and had an amazing time.
We plan on keeping Pineapple Black going for as long as we can, and have lots of ideas for the future – So if you would like to see and know more please visit the website at pineappleblack.co.uk
