MOUNTAIN Collages.
Collages cut into magazine covers.
Framed magazines (coloured perspex surrounds in box frames).

Dan Shipsides
2014-16

This work was first shown with in the Kendal Mountain Festival 2016 in the Wharehouse Gallery in the Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal.

 

This series of collages is derived from my collection of ‘vintage’ MOUNTAIN magazine. MOUNTAIN magazine was a seminal climbing and mountaineering publication which ran from the late 1960’s to the mid 1990’s. It was a particularly significant for its beautiful minimal design which was based on fantastic cover imagery and the lack of visual clutter, adverts or content info on the cover page.

In cutting and making these works I acknowledge a transgression over the integrity of the original image – of which I am really in awe of.  My desire was to reconfigure the seductive image of a place or event elsewhere and create something new and visually puzzling that is in the space of the viewer. The geometric cuts pay homage to the beauty of simplicity of magazine itself but also perhaps connect with a sense of poise and composition of a great climbing move or the way we might try to come to terms with the ‘epic’ through pattern and geometry. I hope my approach treats the ethic of the magazine with sincerity and effort but I can understand some annoyance in relation to the ‘revered’ images I have intervened with. I believe in an ethic of freedom, freewill and individual responsibility (also for the collective good) and I think on some level I had become a slave to these images – through their tendency to motivate a desire to become the image – rather engage with the real. However I do admit that when slicing up the original images it often felt like there was a committing “either you do it - or you don’t” moment.

 

Titles:

MOUNTAIN 56
Ray Jardin leading on the second ascent of Separate Reality (5.12) Yosemite Valley. Ph. John Lakey.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 69
Ed Newville. 1st ascent west face Riesenstein, Kichatna. 1979. Ph. Alan Kearney.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 72
Stevie Lewis climbing on Plain Sailing (400ft E2 5b). West face Stackpole Head. Pembroke. Ph. Pat Littlejohn.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 76
Everest from Nuptse. Ph. Dough Scott.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 79
Jim Collins. Le Void Flake. Ph. Phil Briggs.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 95
Fitzroy from the east. Ph. Casarotto.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 96
Patrick Edlinger leading Baiser Sanglant (French 6b+) Verdon Gorge. Ph. Jean-Marc Troussier.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 97
Joyce Bracht leading Genesis (5.12) Redgarden Wall, Elderado Canyon. Ph. Harvey Arnold.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 103
Claude Cassin making the trick lasso mavoeuvre on La Traversee Sans Retour. Calanques. Ph. Cassin Collection.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 105
Craig Smith on pitch two of Division of Labour (E6 6b, 6c). Kinsley Crag, Yorkshire. Ph. Neil Foster
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 106
Dan Goodwin on Sphinx Crack (5.13) South Platte, Colorado. Ph. Anne Weber TKO images.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 110
Stefan Glowacz. Debilof 6c+. Verdon Gorge. Ph. Uli Wiesmeier.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 111
Ron Kauk. Yosemite Falls. Ph. Glen Rowell.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 114
Skip Guerin and Ron Kauk on Figures in the Landscape (5.10b) at Joshua Tree. Ph. Galen Rowell / Mountain Light.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 117
Graig Smith. Darkness at Noon (5.13a) Dihedrals, Smith Rock, Oregon. Ph. Beth Wald.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 134
Robyn Erbesfield giving 100% on Scamperproof (5.12) on the Tennessee Wall, Tennessee. Ph. Greg Epperson
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 135
Ron Kauk. Killer Pillar. Ph. Galen Rowell.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 136
Jean Michel Cazanovo bouldering by the sea at Capo Testa, Sardinia. Ph. Philippe Poulet / Benzali-Gamma.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 138
Ron Kauk. Taking a look on the Lighterside (5.12) Medicot Dome, Toulumne Meadows. Ph. Greg Epperson.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 139
Catherine Destiville. Fremont Canyon. Ph. Gerard Kosicki.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 143
Kangshung. Ph. Leo Dickson from a balloon.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016

MOUNTAIN 144
Nick White going for it on Flying the Colours (E5 6a), Lundy. Ph. John Houlihan.
Framed magazine collage.
Dan Shipsides
2016