Party is Over, Long Live the Party: A solo exhibition by Gala Knörr

Pablo’s Birthday is pleased to present Party is Over, Long Live the Party, the gallery’s second solo exhibition with Gala Knörr. Knörr’s practice uses painting to reflect on the power of images and investigate their impact on our collective consciousness. Through research-based initiatives, Knörr begins at the pictorial, incorporating mediums such as installation, performance, video, and writing as a way to examine pop culture and the construction of shared histories. 

Party is Over, Long Live the Party was inspired by Knörr’s own experience attending raves in the UK. The project originated from her video work ALLODOXAPHOBIA, which explored the memetic potential of the People’s Vote March in London in October 2019. At the end of the march, she encountered an impromptu anti-Brexit rave in Trafalgar Square—an experience that sparked her fascination with the distinctive ways people engage in protest. Knörr connected the similarities between this event and the Freedom To Party march at the square in January 1990, where almost 10,000 people danced against the Graham Bright Bill that would outlaw rave parties. These two simple acts of dissent synthesize the connection between protest as an expression of joy and joy as a radical weapon of transformative protest, forging a link between the act of demonstration and the act of celebration.

Pulling images from her oeuvre, film, records, her own photographic archive, and personal experiences, Knörr offers a glimpse into the origins of rave in other European contexts; a focus on Belgium’s New Beat movement and its overwhelming influence on the youth, the arts, and social culture. Knörr includes playful portraits of influential figures and large-scale drawings of iconic nightclub façades, such as Ancienne Belgique Night Club and Boccaccio. Utilizing canonical references like Pieter Brueghel The Elder’s drawing of the St. Vitus dance or Matisse’s La Danse, 1910–where people dance frantically– Knörr highlights the epicenters of the scene. It was at The Ancienne Belgique where DJ Dikke Ronny pioneered the New Beat sound by altering A Split Second’s song ‘Fresh’ from a 45 rpm tempo to 33 rpm, creating a distinctive rhythm that defined clubs like Boccaccio. Inside these spaces prominent figures, such as Confetti’s Peter Renkens mimed performances on playback and the techno legend CJ Bolland helped shape the collective imaginary of the early 90s and the enduring legacy of New Beat. 

Through the creation of these images, Knörr weaves a perspective on this history. Party is Over, Long Live the Party, invites viewers to reflect on emotions and histories that shaped youth culture and its effects on contemporary society that have become a vital part of the world we live in. This exhibition not only celebrates the power of collective experience but also honors the rich history of the ecologies, architectures, and social contexts surrounding the birth of house music and rave culture in the EU honing in on the tenet of the rave as an act of resistance.

Gala Knörr’s participation is made possible by the Etxepare Basque Institute.