Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Westword Best of Denver Awards

The Big Picture

Perhaps because Denver is not particularly known for its street art, let alone its rich cache of artists and photographers, Month of Photography promoter Mark Sink and Illiterate Gallery decided to do something to help change the way the nation — make that the world — views us. And how. Together, they masterminded and provided the local manpower for a global exchange of photographic images, collectively titled The Big Picture, that have been blown up, Xeroxed and wheat-pasted on walls and billboards not just across Denver, but in some international locations. Photos by our local artists now grace billboards in Switzerland, while works by foreign photographers are all over our town. And lucky us: We get to find — by chance or with the Google map provided — amazing images in the most unexpected places.

Google Map

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Toy Camera Work Shop

TOY CAMERA WORKSHOP – Illiterate Gallery mark sink speaks….

Posted in FINE ART on March 16, 2011 by shannonmcasey

Well known photographer, Mark Sink spoke at Illiterate Gallery – located on 82 South Broadway in Denver, Colorado. There is too much to say about his career and artworld. In a nutshell…..Mark is a well respected photographer, both in the fine art and commercial industry – locally and world wide. He is also a respected curator and highly responisble for Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Lately, he’s been working especially hard on pushing the photography sceen in Colorado. He has a big hand in the photography buzzing around Denver this month.
It was a crisp overcast March afternoon. We all sat around the table as Mark pulled out loads of assorted toy cameras, which were carefully protected in bubble wrap. It was entertaining. What’s a toy camera you ask? Well….we looked at equipment, ranging from a 1901 Kodak Brownie (that’s not actually a toy but an old film camera), to a late 1980′s fisher price children’s camera that spits out fax paper with a photograph. I held a $1200 market value bugs bunny camera…. “what’s up doc”, and looked at various polariod cameras. Of course, Mark brought his infamous Diana camera. Mark and Diana go way back in time. He has his own chapter of photographs in the Diana Camera book. If you purchase a modern day Diana it comes with a nice little book with a display of impressive photography from photographers who have used the Diana. Of course, we were introduced to the slightly hilarious bioncular style Andy Warhol polaroid camera, (which everyone should own, just for party conversation) – the list of cameras went on and on. Mark has a history working with Andy Warhol, and we enjoyed some stories about that as well. His excitement about photography is wicked contagious. Everyone got to tinker with the cameras and take photos. We are all anxious to meet again and see what we’ve photographed. Selected images will be blown up and wheat pasted to an approved outdoor location. There are already photographs wheat pasted all over the Denver metro area. Wheat pasting is a process of adhering paper to buildings and other surfaces, and it’s being used in The Big Picture Show. The photographs are submitted in grayscale and then blown up on an architectural copier. After that, they are adhered to approved locations with the wheat paste, like buildings and walls. One location is the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art’s building. This process is not only happening in Denver, but also locations across the world, including Jamaica, France, Italy, Mexico, Switzerland, Netherlands. +more. There is fantastic photography to be seen in this show and it’s so different. You should not miss it. Every copy of the photographs are sold for $50, so people can afford to buy some really excellent art. Mark says that he’s seeing young kids purchase art and this is very exciting. Let the BIG PICTURE roll!

There is a lot of talk about what is photography anymore. Is digital a sham? Is it not valid? I don’t have the answer to that. I value photography’s ability to create “traces” and “memories”, rather than getting caught up on the medium.
Alternative processes like polariod transfers, cyanotypes, playing on xerox copiers, and just tinkering around with creating images is all photography as well. I believe I was provoked by my instructor, Craig Coleman to think about photography outside the box of pretty pictures. Anyone I went to school with loved Craig’s classes.
I’m going to bore you for a second here with a defination about photography.
The word photography is based on the Greek φῶς (photos) “light” and γραφή (graphé) “representation by means of lines” or “drawing”, together meaning “drawing with light”.
What does that mean?
First of all, it reverts back to the fact that the main element needed for photography is light, it doesn’t say anything about film or digital, but light and lines. hmmmmm… Secondly, you can’t honestly be a photographer if you aren’t keenly interested in light. Moreover, you can’t get serious about taking photographs without considering the light source. Photographers chase light, they study it, they know where it will be during different seasons and times. We genuinely think about light. Often noticing it’s beauty and making a mental note of the time of day. We bounce it around, turn it into colors, and eventually learn how to use strobes, and flash, and bounce natural light. This is true about photography. Lights and cameras go together like peas and carrots (it can be natural light too). There isn’t that old expression “Lights, cameras, action” for nothing ya know? This holds true to film and digital. Here’s the biggest common factor about film and digital cameras. A camera will screw you without notice, without an explaination or apology, and if you looooove photography, you’ll always forgive her. It’s like this sick relationship you’ll never end. haha I am being funny. In my opinion, all photography processes have an element of chance. I have a love and respect for film and darkroom. Anyone who’s worked with film knows it’s magical. Film has a fablous soul all of it’s own. In my fast paced mommy life, I enjoy my full frame digital though. Now I sit in my laundry room and flip loads of laundry while editing my photographs. I like it. I also print on awesome fine art papers at home, and then cover them with resin coating. My iphone has around 10,000 high resolution jpegs, which I carry in my pocket, carry in my purse, use to ring my husband….whatever. I continue to take photos everyday of random moments – driving my family crazy. Mostly of my kids, and stuff I would otherwise never catch. I miss working in a darkroom….it’s true, and I feel like a cheap digital tramp around my fine art friends (they’d laugh), but honestly, film and digital are each fascinating in their own ways.
MONTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Denver Post

arts and entertainment

A very big month for Colorado photography

Three galleries put focus on Colorado artists' work

By Kyle MacMillan
Denver Post Fine Arts Critic

Posted: 03/21/2011 07:54:14 PM MDT

Updated: 03/22/2011 06:16:50 AM MDT

Kristen Hatgi's "Kelsea" is a wet-plate collodian print on display in Flash Gallery's "Feminine Influence" show. (Provided by Flash Gallery )

Heavy-hitters, up-and-comers and unknowns.
They can all be seen during Denver's Month of Photography, which incorporates more than 100 exhibitions in art spaces across the region.
While dozens of the photographers featured are from other states and abroad, offerings at three of Denver's smaller galleries — each with its own intriguing tack — put the spotlight primarily on Colorado artists.
If you're trying to sort out which shows are worth a stop, the three that follow deserve a look.
Among the most engaging is Flash Gallery's "Feminine Influence," which features 28 artists — all but two from the state. In a twist, they were each asked to name one or more women who have had an impact on

Ian Fisher's charcoal on paper, above, "Donovan Landreth #4" (2008 , 21 by 18 inches) is based on a family photograph of his grandfather. It is part of "Double Diptych" at Vertigo Art Space. (Provided by Colorado Photographic Arts Center)

their work. The answers — some just a listing of a name and others longer reflections — range from widely known artists such as Yoko Ono and Vija Celmins, to less familiar ones like Sarah-Jane Lynagh, an up-and-coming Irish photographer and video artist.
To curate this show, the gallery turned to the well-connected Denver artist Katie Taft. She first chose participants whose work she already knew and respected, but she also took recommendations from those initial artists.
As its name implies, Flash normally shows only photography. But it made an exception in allowing Taft to include a small portion of artists who work in painting, video and installation.
That exception allowed her to include two small, hushed gems by fast-rising painter Nathan Abels, including "Drift," depicting a partially shrouded parachutist dropping through the clouds.
Also on view are Kay Tuttle's mixed-media homages to Hannah Höch, book artist Alicia Bailey's jigsaw-puzzle-like constructions, Greg Cradick's humorous imaginings of a "maculist" movement and Cornelia Peterson's black-and- white print, "Nameless and Uncomfortable, She Tried to Exist," with its unsettling echoes of Ralph Eugene Meatyard.

David Sharpe's pinhole photograph, "Eastern Phenomena #12," is included in "Traditionally Unconventional" at Edge Gallery. (Provided by Edge Gallery)

In a Colorado Photographic Arts Center show running through April 15 at the Vertigo Art Space, curator Rupert Jenkins asked eight Colorado artists, who all work with photography to each create two diptychs for the show.
Monique Crine, who has just won a prestigious grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, fashions fastidiously realized oil paintings obviously based on photographs. One pairing consists of a striking backlit photo of a boy in his bedroom, "Zach, Hiding Face" and a related painting, "Zach, With Light," with the same kid's face awash in light, and light dots visible in the background.
Ian Fisher creates dynamic drawings of figures that are reminiscent of Robert Longo's windblown business people from the

"The Rabbit Died" is part of a new series by University of Denver associate professor Carol Golemboski. (Provided by Edge Gallery)

1980s. One such drawing, "Donovan Landreth #4," (2008), is paired as a diptych with the accompanying photograph on which it was based — a 1950s-era image of the artist's grandfather. In "Traditionally Unconventional," an exhibition running through Sunday at the Edge Gallery, curators Jessica Ellis and John Davenport put the accent on photographers who employ traditional processes and historical techniques in new ways.
Examples of the latter include David Zimmer's "The Letter," side- by-side images viewed through an antique stereoscope; Kristen Hatgi's revival of the wet-plate collodian process and Dave Seiler's fastidiously crafted updates on the mutoscope, an early cinematic device.
Other highlights include

Monique Crine's oil painting "Zach, With Light," above, is paired with the photo "Zach, Hiding Face," below, as part of a diptych project by the Colorado Photographic Arts Center at Vertigo gallery. (Provided by Vertigo Art Space)

two recent black-and-white photographs by the ever-enigmatic Carol Golemboski and recent examples of David Sharpe's pinhole images, including the striking "Eastern Phenomena No. 12," depicting a stop sign lined with flashing red lights. Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com

Three exhibitions as part of Denver's Month of Photography

"feminine influence." Mixed media. Flash Gallery, 445 S. Saulsbury St., Lakewood. Katie Taft invited 28 artists — all but two from Colorado — to take part in this primarily photo-based exhibition. Participants were asked to name women who have had an impact on their work in some way. Through April

(Provided by Vertigo Art Space)

23. Noon to 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and noon to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Free. 303-837-1341 or workingwithartists.org "double diptych." Mixed media. Vertigo Art Space, 960 Santa Fe Drive. Curator Rupert Jenkins invited eight Denver-area artists, who all use photography in one way or another in their work, to each present two diptychs. Included are Monque Crine, John Davenport, Ian Fisher, Cinthea Fiss, Greg Friedler, Conor King, Kate Levy and Edie Winograde. Through April 15. 2 to 6 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays and 1 to 4 p.m. Saturdays. Free. 303-573-8378 or vertigoartspace.com
"traditionally unconventional." Photography. Curators Jessica Ellis and John Davenport invited 18 artists to participate in this show, which examines contemporary takes on traditional photographic processes and techniques. Through Sunday. 7 to 10 p.m. Friday and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Free. 720-939-4107 or edgeart.org

Read more: A very big month for Colorado photography - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/art/ci_17667670#ixzz1HLNxD9lK
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Monday, March 7, 2011

Denver Voice

Thursday

Mar032011

A Month of Photography with Mark Sink

Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 11:13AM

By Anne Arden McDonaldInterview & Text by Travis Egedy
Mark Sink is kind of a big deal. I have known him for years, and outside of being a good friend, he has always been a supporter and champion of the underground art community. As a young emerging artist in a city that sometimes chooses not to care about such things, Mark has always been there getting people to pay attention. He is actually one of the reasons that the term “Denver art community” is even something to be written about. He is directly responsible for Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and is basically behind or involved somehow in most of our cities coolest and more progressive art happenings, most notably the “Month of Photography,” taking place throughout Denver this month and into April.
During the Month of Photography (or MOP), over one hundred galleries, concert venues, warehouses and museum spaces will be filled with photographs from hundreds of artists both from Denver and all over the world. The idea is to create dialogue between the city and the art scene and to celebrate the medium he loves, all the while allowing scores of relatively unknown photographers a chance to have their work recognized and seen. This can only be positive, and Mark speaks of his wish that MOP will be able to transform Denver’s urban landscape into a canvas that can be beautified.
I spoke with Mark in his kitchen over some tea about MOP and the beautification of Denver.

By Curtis Wehrfritz

TE: To me, you are someone who is a very important fixture in the Denver art community, even a legend of sorts, but for the readers who maybe don’t know, can you tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do here in Denver?

MS: I am a photographer, curator, art activist. I get myself involved with many art related projects, like getting the Museum of Contemporary Art going. I co-founded it.

You started that in the 90’s right?

Yeah, the early 90’s. Some of the very first board meetings took place in my back yard. Our very first “action item” was to make a bumper sticker that said “wanted: a Contemporary Art Museum.” After that people really stepped up to bat and started supporting us … the main one was Sue Cannon. She paid the paychecks, so our pistons started firing. I was director for a year, and it was a great year. It turned into a photography museum basically; I showed three big nature photography shows.

How did you get started in photography and what is your main interest in it?

Photography started at Metro. I was in printmaking and painting...

This was way back?

(laughs) This was WAY back, this was in the 70’s baby. Bellbottoms. Boy if we could have some of our clothes now that we wore then... anyways, I had always loved photography, but what was the big breakthrough was to go to a class that said you could make ART with your camera. That idea hadn’t really dawned on me. Photography as fine art was not being taught in the schools at that time. Fine art photography as a medium to make artwork did not exist. I had a wonderful teacher that said the camera didn’t matter, so I found a little plastic Diana camera from my childhood that had a roll of film in it that I ended up developing. It was pictures of my mother that I had taken from knee height as a tiny little kid. It blew my mind. To see the optics of this tiny plastic toy camera, that was my golden door. Most of my career was that Diana camera. After school I moved to New York, and I was lucky enough my work started to get recognized. I was doing commercial work. I shot bands and basically anything that moved. In the early 80’s of course, a big bubble change was meeting Andy Warhol; that busted this sad little art student kid right out of the universe.

So let’s talk about the Month of Photography. March in Denver is known as the Month of Photography, or MOP, and that is your brainchild, you started it. What is it exactly?

MOP is stirring up all of the art galleries and art institutions to celebrate photography for a month or more. I am a big believer in power in numbers. It’s just very interesting when you send these tops spinning; they create their own media. The next thing you know you have a whole bag of people spinning, and the talk is around the town. It gains its own momentum.

We started off thinking it would be about 50 galleries, and then the galleries grew up to 80 galleries, then we celebrated when there was 100 galleries.

By Mark Sink

I didn’t even know there were 100 galleries in town!
Well it’s all down the front-range. There [are] 20 venues in Boulder, a handful in Fort Collins. There is something like 120 events going on.

What are some of the exhibitions you are most excited about?
Well of course the one we are doing at Redline, but the big banger, top job one is our “Big Picture” show. It is catching on worldwide. We have work coming from Shanghai, Paris, several from Russia, all over. We are going to post it all over Denver, and we are sending work from Denver out to all these places.

What do you mean post it all over Denver?
We are wheat-pasting in approved sites, and it is going to be in the Illiterate gallery and in the Theory and Practice gallery. We are printing two of each piece so that it might be in a gallery and on the side of a building at the same time. We have the side of Crema coffee, the Hi Dive, all different places.

By Tina Kazakhishvili

Is this the first year it has been really international like this?
Yes. We proposed the show at Illiterate and I said, let’s do big Xeroxes. Let’s get people from other countries! We did an international calling …We have people flying in from all over the place.

It’s exciting, but there are issues of course. It brings up the issue that Denver is basically street art free. It’s because of this mob boss style graffiti task force program, who keep presenting harsher and harsher bills for mandatory jail times and felonies. Grand larceny! not just larceny, but grand larceny, like robbing a bank with a gun, and that is messed up. Any other city in the world has beautiful street art programs. Everyone is kind of nervous.

By David Tippit

Do you think that all the wheat pasting you will be doing has the potential to hopefully change Denver’s opinion on street art? I mean, think about how beautiful it will be to be seeing these huge photographs on the sides of buildings!
Or dumpsters!

I know, it’s a freaking dumpster, why not have an image on it?
Well that’s my point. This is my first time as seeing through the eyes of a tagger. It’s addicting, finding those grey zones. Those closed buildings, the boarded up buildings, abandoned places. I don’t really consider this “street art;” that is a whole canon. The canon of street art is radicalism that is in your face, almost as a “fuck you” kind of thing. I am more interested in beautification. I am more romantic about it; it is an art beautification project.

So this is a big part of the Month of Photography—this aspect of it being beyond the gallery walls?
Well the idea is to bring people and the world closer together through photography, and the street project really hits that on the head. So much is going on throughout the month. The Denver Art Museum will be having a great show, Museo de las Americas will have one of the best shows in the city—it’s just killer. It is of female Mexican photographers. It is a must see show. The pieces are priceless and took a lot to get out of museum collections and stuff to even be here. There are two Warhol shows going on.

It seems MOP gives a chance to a lot of photographers to be seen who otherwise wouldn’t be. Photography shows seem rare in Denver, and I know a lot of photographers have a hard time showing their work. Was this one of the reasons you started MOP? To allow these artists to be seen?

Oh, totally. It is an incredible opportunity for photographers to be able to submit their work to the best galleries in Denver. One of the big parts of MOP is the portfolio review. Painters and sculptors don’t have this opportunity to sit down for a half an hour to show your work to directors of museums, curators, and art dealers, not only just for advice but you get a chance to break into that world. You can be discovered. You can enter to do that on our website. In Houston, this same portfolio review costs $1,200; in Denver we are doing it for $30 bucks—it’s amazing.

It is a celebration of photography, and it brings dialogue on photography, and like this street art dialogue. It is a good thing. We are getting press inquiries from magazines all over the world asking us “What is up with Denver?” everyone is really interested in it. It is an important thing for the city.

For any and all information about MOP visit: http://monthofphotography.blogspot.com/