Beta

Beta
An exhibition of works by Dan Shipsides

Beta; information about a route. Flashto cleanly climb a route on one’s first attempt. 

Beta Flash; slang term in rock climbing meaning: to lead a climb with no falls or dogging and with no previous attempts having studied the route beforehand by, for example, watching or asking other climbers, studying photographs, making plans or reading accounts.

Much of Shipsides’ practice has developed over the last decade to adapt aspects from his engagement with rock climbing to produce artworks and projects using video, photography, audio, text drawing, performance and installation. As a survey of this projects Beta presents a number of climbing based works exploring the range of enquiry the artist has been engaged over this period.

The work develops out of a performative nature – relating to the body and space – and proposes new forms of landscape, new ways of thinking about creativity and spatial narrative. Some works explore or make reference to traditions of landscape representation (Rochers à Fointaneblau, Pioneers and The Stone Bridge) whilst other play more irreverently with the structures through which we encounter art (Gecko Roof, Penguin/Guillemot, Swammadam Groove and Seeking Edelweiss). 

Beta presents a mixture of actual art-works and documentation of live or recorded events with the boundary between the two often blurred – mirroring the layers of representation found in rock-climbing where the actual live event – the climbing act – may often only be seen by a few – if any, leaving the varying forms of documentation and records to contribute to the narrative of a specific route, place or event.

About the artist: 

Dan Shipsides, born Lancashire 1972, is an AHRB Research Fellow at the University of Ulster in Belfast and is involved in the Art and its locations zone on the CREATED research centre.

Solo and group exhibitions/projects include; Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin (Pioneers), Context Gallery, Derry (Rochers à Fointaineblau), Museum of Contemporary Art, Sidney (Sporting Life). Smart Project Space, Amsterdam (Endure). The Alpine Club (Arts&Mountains) and Gimpel Fils Gallery (Nature/Culture) London, Liste 2003, Basel, Switzerland (Videoserver), Melbourne International Biennal, Australia (Signs of Life). Centre choréographique national the Montpellier, France (Edelweiss). Art Gallery of Mississuaga and Art Gallery of Victoria, Canada (Performing Generations), Catalyst Arts, Belfast (Under a frogs arse @ the bottom of a coalmine). In 2000 he won the Nissan Art award IMMA (Bamboo Support) Dublin and 1998 won the Perspective award, OBG, Belfast (The Stone Bridge).

Supported by Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Belfast City Council

 

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Golden Thread Gallery
Unit 13 Weavers Court
Linfield Road
Belfast
BT12 5GH


Tel. +44 (0)28 90 330920
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