Scaling new heights

What do mountains signify to most urban-dwelling contemporary artists? Do they have anything left to say about the human condition? Of the insignificance of man against the terrifying, unpredictable vastness of nature?

One thing is sure: mountains aren't what they were in the days of the great German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich. The subtitle for this exhibition of 33 artists is taken from a biography of the French mountaineer Lionel Terray; and, as it suggests, though the artists here display a variety of attitudes to their subject, most eschew the unfashionably heroic or the sublime.

Kate Bright's Highland peaks are encrusted with white glitter; Andrew Mania has pasted together four postcards showing dull mountain scenes, jollied them up with a bit of glitter and strung a tiny rope ladder between top and bottom mountains; Neal Beggs has covered a sleeping bag with silver sequins, perhaps an obvious pun on the phrase 'gone camping'; and Geraint Evans has painted a backpacker and an ape/Yeti taking a stroll against a mountain backdrop. Meanwhile, in Somewhere Special (pictured) Zoà Walker, in keeping with the wisdom of Mohammed, plants a small inflatable mountain in the middle of a scrubby, desert track.

However, Land artist Hamish Fulton pays due respect to his mountain environment with his sombre and poetic text pieces, as does Jean Odermatt with a set of beautiful aerial photographs, while Peter Doig's painting of a skier, built up with delicate pinkish hues against green pines, dominates much of the work here with its hard, seductive, glinting surface.

Until Nov 1, The Alpine Club, Charlotte Road EC2, Wed to Fri midday to 6pm, free. Tel: 020 7613 0755. Tube: Old Street