In the early days of working with my composite panoramic collages, it became clear to me that some of these images were meant to be big. Alas, because they were originally created as large contact prints containing anywhere from 35 to 150 (later more) 35MM negatives, only some of the smaller assemblies would even fit into an 8×10 enlarger, which I didn’t have anyway. The solution was to make individual prints and assemble them somehow. In some cases I would dry mount prints onto oversize museum board, then frame the entire thing.
This was useful for corporate art sales and some shows. To make very large versions, I found a source for inexpensive lightweight black metal frames which would hold an individual mounted print of each frame of a collage, which I then assembled in vertical rows using long threaded rods. I had a metal hanging strip fabricated which I’d mount to a wall, upon which the rows would hang. I made a 6’ x 6’ version of ‘Untitled, Highland Lake’ in this manner.
In 1989, I contracted with AT&T’s corporate art department to produce a 9’ x 9’ version of ‘Boat, Cape Cod ‘ in the above manner for permanent installation in the Philip Johnson designed AT&T Headquarters building on Madison Avenue. I never managed to get a picture of it in place, but it hung there for years until SONY purchased the building, and my ‘Boat, Cape Cod’ sailed into the collection of the the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut, where it lingers in storage presumably.
In 1996 I was contracted by Corporate art company Randolph Tate to shoot and produce two collages for permanent mural installation in the Newscorp Headquarters on Sixth Avenue. These were collages of NY Jets and NY Rangers stadium games. For these, I evolved more of a ‘frieze’ approach, with the individual frames being printed and box-mounted at different sizes and depths. I have a few images here, but it does amaze me how few images I have of this kind of stuff from the pre-digital era……
In 1998 and again in 1999, I was contracted by ESPN ZONE / Disney to shoot, produce and install two site specific mural installations for the new ESPN ZONE restaurants opening in Baltimore and New York City. I was selected along with many esteemed artists and illustrators including Josh Gosfield and Steve Gerberich by curator/artist Steven Diamond, who managed the projects. For the Baltimore project I took a similar approach to the Newscorp project, this time the subject matter was the Preakness Race, the second jewel of the famed Triple Crown.
For the NYC ZONE, we chose the NYC Marathon as subject matter (after considering a possible NY Yankee ticker tape parade collage). We installed it on the underside of a curling staircase at the front entrance. The final collage, consisting of a couple hundred separate images, was broken out into 12 sections, each printed separately, then mounted onto sheet metal, then cut into their specific esoteric shapes. They were then installed as an overlapping ‘drop ceiling’, which could not have been done without the expertise of lifelong friend and union carpenter Michael Connor, who supervised the installation.
David McGlynn 