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/

Anne Arden McDonald, Curtis Wehrfritz, David Tippit, Mark Sink, Month of Photography, Tina Kazakhishvili, Travis Egedy 

As We See Them Opens in KI Gallery

Home » Winter 2011 » As We See Them Opens in KI Gallery

As We See Them Opens in KI Gallery

Charles West
KWRV2 #1, 2007.
Cyanotype.

Organized by guest curators Herbert Ascherman, Jr. and Jeannette Palsa, As We See Them presents the work of eleven artists who are using some of the earliest photographic processes to create contemporary images dealing with sexuality and the human figure. This diverse group of photographers has put aside digital technology to explore the possibilities of these 19th-century processes.
Featured works include cyanotypes by Patrick Alt and Charles West, platinum-palladium prints by Herbert Ascherman, Jr. and Jeannette Palsa, gum bichromate prints by Laurent Benaïm, photogravures by Constantine Gedal, tintypes by Cynthia Greig, ambrotypes by Ed Ross, daguerreotypes by Charlie Schreiner, and aluminum-types by Mark Sink and Kristen Hatgi.
On Thursday, February 3rd, noted photographer and guest curator Herbert Ascherman, Jr. presented a public lecture on the history of the nude in photography in France, England and the United States from photography's inception in 1839 to the turn of the last century, using examples from The Kinsey Institute collection and the current show, As We See Them. 

Photographer and guest curator Herbert Ascherman Jr.

 
The history of the nude in photography is the history of the development of photography itself.  Following in the footsteps of the Renaissance painters, it was only natural that the earliest 19th century photographers turned to the human form for inspiration and titillation.  Ascherman explored the development of the daguerreotype, tintype, and other photographic processes in the 19th century, and also discussed the censorship of erotic imagery in photographs in Europe and the United States.
The exhibit is showing from January 21 - April 1, 2011 at the Kinsey Institute Gallery.
The Kinsey Institute Gallery is open 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm weekdays or by appointment. Admission is free. Visitors should be 18 years of age or older, unless accompanied by a parent or guardian. The Kinsey Institute Gallery is located in Indiana University’s Morrison Hall, 1165 E. Third Street (behind Memorial Hall), Bloomington, IN. 812-855-7686.

Art

Warhol in Colorado: Mark Sink's 15 Minutes of Fame

By Susan Froyd, Fri., Jan. 21 2011 @ 1:12PM

Mark Sink: "Andy Warhol, Mountain Man," Colorado, 1982.

When the exhibit Warhol in Colorado opens for public viewing today at DU's Myhren Gallery, one of the show's major components will include photos taken of Warhol by Colorado photographers in the early '80s, when the pop artist visited Fort Collins amid much hoopla for a major exhibition of his works, assembled by noted collectors Jon and Kimiko Powers, at the Colorado State University campus. Mark Sink was both a bicycle racer and an aspiring photographer when Andy Warhol came to Fort Collins, in town himself for a bike race (during which he crashed near finish line, resulting in a bad case of road rash). When he heard that Andy Warhol was in town, he jumped at the chance to meet the pop-art icon.
"I went on a mission to find Andy. I kept asking people, 'Have you seen Andy?' And they would say, 'Oh, I saw him here, I saw him there.' So I kept looking, opening and closing doors, and then I opened a door, and there was Andy sitting there signing posters by himself. He was super happy to see me, so I sat down with him. I got to tell him how much I loved Interview and how I was an aspiring photographer, and by the next month my name was on the masthead of Interview.

Mark Sink: "Portrait of Andy Warhol" (detail), 1982.

"He loved to have fresh, young, bushy-tailed kids at his side, and he said, 'Come with me. Let's go find the others,' so we walked onto campus. I was so naive, but when I saw the guys he was with, I realized, 'Oh, he's like a giant queen!' But we all hung out on the campus lawn, and we lit up some joints, and I took pictures. And then he said, 'You're welcome to come back to our funny little motel.' So I jumped in my Volkswagen and was racing to the motel, and I got pulled over by the police. But they let me go when I explained what was going on; they were really sweet about it. So I go there, and Andy asks me, 'Can I take pictures of your scrapes?' And I said, 'Of course.'" At which point Sink obediently dropped trou in front of the motel room while Warhol took this now-infamous shot of the fit and tan young bike racer's road rash and skivvies.

Andy Warhol: Mark Sink, September 1981, outside Andy Warhol's motel room, Fort Collins, CO.

Sink also stood in the legendary two-mile line to get Warhol's autograph, but it was worth the wait: "He signed every page of my portrait book. I brought anything I had that had to do with Andy, and he signed every single thing. He even drew me a penis with a money sign on it. Andy had a little bit of a crush on me."

Mark Sink: "Crash (Don Helping Smiling Andy Up)," Colorado, 1982.

And of his own photographs of Warhol, of which there are many, Sink says: "I never considered these fine art or celebrity art. I consider most of them lucky-to-be-there snapshots. I liked getting him smiling and out of his persona, instead of that empty gaze he did, just to show that he had a great sense of humor. He was actually really fun, especially after a couple vodka tonics. He was very knowledgeable in art history, and he collected Navajo rugs and and turquoise and silver. My mom grew up in Santa Fe, so when he'd go there on shopping trips, he'd say, 'Tell me about this, tell me about that.' The main thing is that he was just a sponge of art and history. He was always asking questions."

Tags:

Andy Warhol, John and Kimiko Powers, Mark Sink, Myhren Gallery, Warhol in Colorado

 

 

Fetes welcome "Warhol in Colorado" show

By Joanne Davidson
Denver Post Society Columnist

Posted: 01/27/2011 01:00:00 AM MST

Decor at the Cable Center. "The Happening," the opening of the "Warhol in... (Steve Peterson)

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Philae Dominick in front of the Chairman Mao prints that she lent to the exhibit. ( Photos by Steve Peterson, Special to The Denver Post )

Aside from the Campbell's Soup cans and famous faces that defined his iconic art, Andy Warhol is most famous for having said, in 1968, that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."

So of course we're thinking that it would have been pretty cool if the opening party for "Warhol in Colorado" had lasted only 15 minutes.
Maybe not.
As it was, the two hours set aside for Thursday's VIP preview was barely long enough for 300 fans of the Master of Pop Art to absorb and enjoy 100 original works — and assorted memorabilia — that will be at the University of Denver's Victoria H. Myhren Gallery through March 13.
It was important to keep track of the time, though, because the evening had a Part II: A 1960s, New York club scene-influenced Warhol Happening at the neighboring Cable Center.
There, guests could enjoy deejay music and a Gourmet Fine Catering buffet that was a throwback to the days when pigs in a blanket were a cocktail-hour staple and a stiff martini or scotch on the rocks was a beverage of choice.
So how did a Warhol exhibit end up at DU and why was a venue as high- tech as the Cable Center chosen for the party? "Although thinly documented until now, Warhol visited Colorado approximately a half-dozen times in the late 1970s and early '80s," explains gallery director Dan Jacobs, who curated the exhibit with Rupert Jenkins, president of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center. "Our goal is to recapture the significance of his impact on the regional art scene by reaching out to numerous organizations, individuals and philanthropists who have connections (of varying degrees) to him."
Denver resident Philae Dominick, for example, lent her set of 10 original, hand-finished silkscreen prints of Chairman Mao. Valere Harris Shane, also of Denver, worked for Interview, the magazine Warhol co-founded, and provided contact sheets and black-and- white prints that

Valere Shane and daughter, Bayley, stand beside images she took of Warhol when she worked for Interview magazine.

she shot of him with supermodel Cheryl Tiegs, gossip columnist Liz Smith and others. Photographers John Bonath and Mark Sink chronicled Warhol's visits to Aspen, and many of those images are included in the exhibit, as is a poster that gallery namesake Victoria Myhren had Warhol autograph when she shared an elevator ride with him at the Denver Art Museum.
Warhol, who died after gallbladder surgery in 1987, also experimented with computer imaging and cable-television programming, which inspired Myhren and her opening night co-chairs Lauren Cannon Davis and Alexis Hart to keep the Cable Center's multiscreen video tower filled with snippets from the artist's jet-setting life.

Lauren Cannon Davis, left, and Alexis Hart, co-chairs of the Warhol opening party.

Myrhen and her husband, Trygve, are principal sponsors of "Warhol in Colorado," along with Trish and Ralph Nagel, J.P. Morgan, the Cable Center and the University of Denver, whose chancellor, Robert Coombe, was at the opening with his wife, Julanna Gilbert.Christopher Hill, who became dean of DU's Josef Korbel School of International Studies after serving as U.S. ambasssador to Iraq, was there with his wife, Julie, as were Denver Art Museum president Cathey Finlon and her husband, Dick; Vance Kirkland Museum founder Hugh Grant and his wife, Merle Chambers; Tom Whitten and his wife, Michelle, with her parents, John and Anna Sie; Jane Hamilton; Bob and

The DU gallery is named after Vicki Myhren, with her husband, Trygve Myhren; and Lisza Gulyas, an event sponsor. (Steve Peterson)

Judi Newman; Michele Mosko Fine Art owner Michele Mosko; Clara Villarosa; Dr. Kelly McAleese; Gail Berliner; Linda Bowen Scott; Thom Wise; Stevie and Dr. Art Strasburger; Will Joseph; Pam Hill and Dr. John Grossman; George Ann and Buzz Victor; Dianne Eddolls and Glenn Jones; Janis Hampton; Barry and Arlene Hirschfeld; Sue McFarlane; Roselyn Saunders and Dan Sharp; Layne and Craig Fleishman; and Lisza Gulyas, whose VuConcepts was one of the evening's sponsors. The Victoria H. Myhren Gallery, 2121 E. Asbury Ave., is open daily from noon to 6 p.m. Admission is free.

More online
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• Jan 28:
• "Andy Warhol in Colorado" exhibit at DU's Myhren Gallery an ambitious offering

Andy Warhol in Colorado

"Andy Warhol in Colorado" exhibit at DU's Myhren Gallery an ambitious offering

Mass-media visionary's art feels brand new at DU

By Kyle MacMillan
Denver Post Fine Arts Critic

Posted: 01/28/2011 01:00:00 AM MST

In this 1981 photo by John Bonath, a tired-looking Andy Warhol stretches out on his hotel bed after spending hours signing autographs during an appearance at Colorado State University. (Collection of the artist )

In a time when pop culture reigns supreme, Andy Warhol still counts among its royalty.
The art world's answer to Marshall McLuhan, he grasped the converging power of mass media and mass marketing in the 1960s and '70s and cannily prefigured today's instant communication and social networking.
Drawing inspiration from advertising, celebrity culture and anything underground or outre, Warhol made low art the new high art and set the stage for much of what was to come in the following decades.
That the famed pop artist's work remains as contemporary and relevant as ever, nearly a quarter-century after his death, goes far in explaining the local buzz around a newly opened exhibition at the University of Denver's Myhren

Warhol's manipulated, pop-influenced style can be seen in "Mao 3," part of a 1972 suite of screen-prints depicting Mao Tse-tung. ( Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/ Artists Rights Society, New York )

Gallery — "Warhol in Colorado."

Although hardly a full-fledged retrospective and lacking much in the way of major works by the artist, it is nonetheless an ambitious offering, complete with an accompanying 68-page, magazine-style catalog.
The show, co-curated by Myhren director Dan Jacobs and Rupert Jenkins, contains more than 100 objects — photographs, original prints, graphics and assorted other works by Warhol, as well as images and memorabilia related to him.
Its springboard was a 2008 gift of 158 Warhol photographs — Polaroids and silver prints — from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in a bid to boost the display and study of this area of his artistry.
Beginning in 2007, the foundation distributed more than 28,000 of the artist's photos (still just a fraction of the estimated 100,000-150,000 images that exist) to 183 university galleries and museums across the United States, including three in Colorado.
The undertaking was a brilliant win-win for everyone. It kept these works from languishing unseen in storage, and it gave institutions, which could otherwise afford to acquire little if anything by this artist, a substantive body of his work.
Among the DU images are Polaroid snapshots, which Warhol used as the basis for his portraits, and images that served as a kind of photographic diary of his expansive, celebrity-driven social milieu.
The Myhren Gallery could have simply exhibited a portion of the donation, and that probably would have been interesting enough. But to their credit, Jacobs and Jenkins greatly expanded the show's scope, borrowing supplementary objects from nearly 20 private and public collections.
Several of these loans, such as "Golden Mushroom," a 1969 silk-screen from the Campbell's Soup II series, and the "Campbell's Souper Dress" (1967-68), both quintessential examples of Warhol's famous appropriations of the iconic soup can, provide a telling introduction to his work.
Also highly representative is a 1972 set of eight silk-screened portraits of Mao Tse-tung, (another of Warhol's favorite subjects), created in the artist's trademark manipulated, pop-influenced style with eye- catching, saturated colors.
A fascinating subset in the show is a group of more than a dozen of Warhol's less widely known album covers, including a contact- sheet-like look for "This Is John Wallowitch" (1964) and the Rolling Stones' "Sticky Fingers (1971), with an actual zipper built into the design.
In a catalog essay on the covers, Darrin Alfred, AIGA associate curator of graphic design, wrote that these undertakings were the artist's "most constant vehicle of production" from 1949 until his death in 1987.
As suggested by the title, part of the exhibition is devoted to documenting Warhol's trips to Colorado, including a visit to Fort Collins in 1981 for an an exhibition of his work at Colorado State University.
In images such as "Warhol Signing at CSU Fort Collins," depicting eager autograph-seekers, photographer John Bonath, then on the school's faculty, captured the sensation that the artist's appearance obviously sparked.
There are several memorable portraits taken during his time in the state, including the whimsically titled "Andy Warhol, Mountain Man, Colorado" (1982), by Denver photographer Mark Sink, who met the artist at CSU and became part of his circle in New York City.
Also notable is "Portrait of Andy Warhol at the Denver Art Museum" (1977) by Lloyd Rule, then the museum's staff photographer. The unusual four-way image shows the artist seated in the corner of a Larry Bell glass sculpture, contemplating his reflections.
Warhol was an artistic bellwether of his time, and his pop-tinged vision still sharply resonates today.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com

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"WARHOL IN COLORADO."

Art. Myhren Gallery, University of Denver, Shwayder Art Building, 2121 E. Asbury Ave. Photographs, original prints and other works by Andy Warhol are on view along with photographs of Warhol and memorabilia related to him and his visits to Colorado. In all more than 100 objects are included from DU's holdings and nearly 20 other public and private collections. Noon to 6 p.m. daily. Free. 303- 871-3716 or du.edu/art/myhrengallery.html.

"WARHOL + 1."

Film series. Denver FilmCenter/Colfax, 2510 E. Colfax Ave. The Denver Film Society is presenting a series of four films exploring key figures in Andy Warhol's life: artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, socialite Edie Sedgwick, filmmaker Danny Williams and actress Candy Darling. 7 p.m. Tuesdays in Febuary. 303-595-3456 or denverfilm.org.

Related --

• Fetes welcome "Warhol in Colorado" show

Dale Chisman

REDLINE  is opening the retrospective of one of my most cherished friends Dale Chisman. He inspired countless including co-founding MCA Denver.. He is one of the most amazing honest and pure abstract painters Colorado has ever produced. His passing has been a giant hole our art community and my life. I hope you come and celebrate the life of this great artist.

The Kinsey Institute Show

As We See Them:

Exotic and Erotic Images from

Contemporary Alternative Process Photographers

New Exhibition in The Kinsey Institute Gallery

January 21 through April 1, 2011

Morrison Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington

As We See Them presents the work of eleven international photographic artists who are using 19th century Alternative Processes to create contemporary photographs which image sexuality and the human figure. Featured works include cyanotypes by Patrick Alt and Charles West, platinum-palladium prints by Herbert Ascherman Jr. and Jeannette Palsa, gum bichromate prints by Laurent Benaïm, photogravures by Constantine Gedal, tintypes by Cynthia Greig, ambrotypes by Ed Ross, daguerreotypes by Charlie Schreiner, and aluminum-types by Mark Sink and Kristen Hatgi.

Opening reception:  Friday, January 21, 5:00 - 7:00 pm, The Kinsey Institute Gallery, Morrison Hall (second floor). 

This event is free and open to the public.  Refreshments will be provided.

Mark and Meghan summer 2010

Marcy and Apple blossoms spring 2010

Leah Summer 2010 - Kinsey Collection -

Lauren and chastity belt summer 2010

Warhol in Colorado

‘Warhol in Colorado’–Memories and Memorabilia

December 20, 2010

Andy Warhol: Mark Sink, Fort Collins, September, 1981. Gelatin silver print. 8 3/4 x 6 in. image size. © 2010 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. University of Denver Art Collections.

Mark Sink had been among several cyclists at the head of the pack in a 1981 Colorado state championship in Fort Collins. The trio somehow got tangled and crashed, and Sink got “road rash,” scrapes and bruises, up and down his legs and arms.
Recovering, Sink, a photographer, heard from a friend that Andy Warhol was in town for an exhibit of his work assembled by local pop-art collectors John and Kimiko Powers. Sink roamed around the Colorado State University campus asking people, “Have you seen Andy?” and opening the doors of classrooms. Finally, in one, there was Warhol, sitting by himself signing posters.
Warhol’s handlers had run off to get him something to eat, says Sink, and “he was thrilled to see me.” Sink told Warhol how much he loved Interview magazine, sat with Warhol and a few members of his entourage on the campus lawn, then headed to Warhol’s motel so that the famed artist could grab a nap before the opening.
Sink told Warhol about the bike crash, and Warhol wanted, per his custom, to take pictures of the wounds. “Click click click click click,” is how Sink describes Warhol’s modus operandi. And thus it was that Sink was trousers down outside a motel having his picture taken by Andy Warhol (just as John Powers and a college president happened to be walking near).
Like a number of moments snapped by Warhol or Sink, that one will be included in an exhibit at the University of Denver’s Myhren Gallery from January 20 through March 13, 2011. “Warhol in Colorado” is structured around 158 Warhol Polaroids and silver prints given to the University of Denver in 2008 by the Warhol Foundation. About two-thirds of the exhibit consists of Warhol’s work, and the other third comprising photos of Warhol and ephemera from Warhol’s trips West.
Warhol’s 1981 visit was one of about a half-dozen to Colorado in the 70s and 80s, says Dan Jacobs, director of the Myhren Gallery and co-curator of the exhibit. The Warhol Foundation gave gifts of the artist’s work to some 180 museums and galleries, so Jacobs asked himself how he could put together a Warhol show in a way that “would be relevant and interesting but not trying to compete with the truly major exhibits.”
Warhol’s time in Colorado seemed like a good theme. And just as Warhol’s visits pulled the Colorado Rockies art community together three decades ago, the new exhibit, Jacobs says, pools items drawn from the University of Denver, Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Tied in, Jacobs says, will be a gala sponsored by the Cable Center, four nights of Warhol-related films shown by the Denver Film Society, and a lecture at the Denver Art Museum.
Jacobs says that before the phrase developed its Web resonance, social networking was “part of [Warhol's] artistic practice,” and Jacobs sees the exhibit and related events as a chance to “reactivate a lot of those connections.”

Mark Sink: Andy Warhol in cabin doorway, Colorado, 1982. 10 x 8 in., gelatin silver print. Courtesy of the artist.

Warhol’s longest Colorado stays were a little more than a week, Jacobs says. In addition to schmoozing with collectors, curators, and artists, he went to Aspen to learn how to ski, “wearing a huge fur hat that took the place of his wig.”
And he snowmobiled, too—once to his great peril, says Sink. Warhol’s friend John was piloting their snowmobile behind Sink, who had a hand in the snow, jetting the snow up in a little blinding spray over John’s goggles. Sink looked back to see Warhol’s snowmobile flying off a little cliff. “I’ve killed the Prince of Pop!” was Sink’s first thought. “We all gasped and got up,” went to look, and Warhol “was laughing and rolling in the snow. I have pictures of it all. Some of my favorite pictures of him are of him breaking up laughing. I have hundreds and hundreds of contact sheets that have never been published.
“Eventually that might be my retirement pay, Andy reaching up out of his grave, saying ‘Here you go, Mark!’”
The snowmobile day ended fine. “We went down and had Mexican TV dinners with ice cream on glazed donuts,” Sink recalls. Then a private jet became available and they drove Warhol to the airport.
The artist invited Sink to come to New York, and Sink lived there for about a decade, with one foot in the art scene—Warhol’s Factory, Sink’s own studio in Chelsea, taking portrait shots of Jean-Michel Basquiat and other contemporary-art luminaries—and the other foot making ends meet by photo-editing for a heavy-metal rock magazine, Circus, and for MGF. (“Sadly, I don’t like heavy metal,” says Sink, who also tried introducing artsier fair to turn MGF into kind of a Self for guys, but “the stupider we made it, the better it sold . . . ’10 Ways to Build Your Pecs’ … ‘Best Pickup Lines’ …”
The Factory gang was cliquish and didn’t like Sink, he says. But Warhol did, and he grooved on Sink’ Polaroids and portraits, though less so on the “super-romantic” old-fashioned shots Sink took with his little Diana toy camera. More recently, Sink, who comes from an illustrious New York photo lineage, has extensively explored 19th-century wet-plate work.
Sink says he has never really taken to the Annie Liebovitz-style celebrity portrait and says, “I never considered these pictures of Andy art.” Asked if it was, to a degree, both blessing and curse that his career became intertwined with Warhol’s, the celebrity sun maybe blinding viewers to Sink’s own long, wide-ranging career, Sink replies good-naturedly, “I’ll take it.” He notes how lucky he’s been to make a living as a freelance photographer, photo editor, photo curator, and sometime photo teacher. “I’m a survivor from the 80s.”
“Photograph anything and everything around you,” is the Warhol lesson that’s stuck with Sink the most, he says. “That had a great influence on me.”
Click click click click click.

—Alexander C. Kafka

Mark's stream of thought on Dance and Photography.

How can i explain this rush? .. this purity
this is living instrument of art
dance is the most elementary of the arts
pure and honest to the medium
it is a connection with man and childs deepest past
it confirms a immortality of arts bringing pure wine from an ancient vineyard,  it makes me high
the dancers of BNC make me cry its soooo beautiful.
there is a spirit connection with the past
i am a gushy romantic
there is magic made by impressions of the body movement and music
imprints of gesture of love and passion
beauty supreme beauty chasing beauty
desire ... ahhh desire
our sin and our soul
romanticism love and death
eroticism and death
little deaths
pushing away
returning
making the soul remember
beauty of the body and nature stirred to ecstasy we dance
subtle gesture and movement passed to and into the viewer

"the slender infragible thread of the eternal tradition of beauty" -Shaemas O Sheel- said in the 1901 Book of Dance.


Lovers of dance have shared with me a leaf slowly falling in the wind.. or dancing across the ground.
It can make my day seeing that leaf fall in perfict form and beauty passing through light and time .. it touches deep inside like i have seen magic.

Sitting watching these dancers this same feeling rushes over me.
It is a timeless magic in motion. It touches your soul.
it taps into something that words or pictures just fail .. is it in my DNA ? is it my genes tapping into a spirit of the past?
It makes me weak and i just weep.

Listening to Alex talk to the dancers about dust gently landing on your arm or quoting Proust and studies in visual emotional transfer to one human to the next how that was writen hundreds of years ago and now science is proving it with electronics that monitor the brain.
He spoke how just the littlest gesture of the splay of the tips of your fingers will carry directly into and felt by your viewer.
This spoke directly to me.
This is what i work with ..emotional transference in photography.
I conceptualize the image in my mind, I pose myself i play the part i feel the part and demonstrate this to the model with theatrical projection to demonstrate the mood. I then step behind to black curtain to look at it on glass. An experienced model will understand and feel the story being told and project this knowing her lines of beauty and mixing that with my vision and story.
It is glorious when the two meet. This shares with a corriographer and dance.

I find many parallels to 19th century staged photography and dance.. I make wetplate photographs because they are true to the medium and very pure.They are a direct link to the past. They take no electricity no mechanics other then a simple box with a hundred sixty year old glass lens to focus light on to a plate of silver to where shadows are fixed forever. It is magic , objects made immortal.
But i struggle with stopping motion in dance ..motion cut into pieces arrested it doesn't work.  Its like showing a musician playing music with no sound .. its empty.
So this is a challenge.. and i respectfully bow my head that the medium i work with cannot document this art work and it is rude to try.
But i share feelings of passion that staging a creation a fantasy does share a common goal and it can touch the soul when is it honest and pure. Artists know when they have made this almost divine connection.
Like a dream finding that point a timeless moment of love ...a connection ..just a simple gaze upon beauty.
For me ..A face, Two bodies meeting ..that fluid connection of wrapping together and stopping for a moment of connection... there ..there is a blink of a chance.
A face piercing through the camera lens straight into your soul.

Long exposure showing movement has different story to tell. light is sliding along the body like water. It tell of the movement passing like a spirit passing.
Its not reality but its a document of the motion passed. Here thier is magic in the abstraction of movement. Letting go to chance and allowing movement to paint a picture never seen before.
Time and light as a river together. Its something we are all passing through together, our bodies and life in constant motion. Dance turns this ride into breath taking beauty. The lines created in the long exposures are gestures of this time and form passing by.

Photographers are documenters and collectors.  Painters, sculptor's and choreographers/ dancers work with passion and love and total devotion to the craft to make this creation like a child, then hand it off rarely or never to be seen again in that original form.
This is a gift to us of something pure so beautiful. Its given to you for but a brief fleeting moment .. it touches your heart then is gone.

Mark Sink

Chasing the Sublime

   

Visual Artists + Choreographers
Chasing the Sublime
a shared experience in art
November 5-14
Three choreographers pair with three visual artists to apply their skills and imaginations in a pursuit of the horizon. Chasing the Sublime is BNC's first co-production with Lakewood Cultural Center. The project will open with a ga...llery exhibit at the Cultural Center, continue with a public discussion, and culminate with three world premiere ballets in November.

www.bncdance.com

www.Lakewood.org/CulturalCenter

Lakewood Cultural Center
470 S. Allison Parkway, Lakewood, CO 80226

Friday, November 5 – 8pm
Saturday, November 6 – 8pm
Sunday, November 7 – 2pm

Performing Arts Complex at PCS
1001 W. 84th Avenue, Denver, CO 80260

Friday, November 12 – 8pmSaturday, November 13 – 8pmSunday, November 14 – 2pm

Visual Artists + Choreographers

Mark Sink +Kristen Hatgi + Alex Ketley
www.kristenhatgi.com
www.gallerysink.com
www.alexketley.com


Laura Merage + Sarah Tallman
www.lauramerage.combncdance.com/stallman

Mark Allen Henderson + Garrett Ammon
www.markallenhenderson.combncdance.com/gammon

Denver Post Review

Showing of Mark Sink's photos just scratches surface

By Kyle MacMillan
Denver Post Fine Arts Critic

Posted: 10/01/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT

Sink, who was briefly part of Andy Warhol's circle in New York City, took many photographs of the artist, including this one, "Andy in L.A.," 1981, silver print. (Photo courtesy of Byers-Evans House Gallery)

Mark Sink maintains such a ubiquitous presence in the Denver photography scene as a curator, dealer and all-around promoter that it's sometimes easy to forget that he is a significant artist in his own right.
Indeed, a strong argument can be made that at 52, he is the city's most accomplished photographer of his generation.
Unfortunately, a survey of his 35-year career on display at the Byers-Evans House Gallery does not fully back such an assertion. But that has more to do with the organization of the exhibition than the substance of his work.
Sink, in conjunction with staff members at the museum, chose to present highlights of his career, offering snatches from 12 series within his work ranging from revivals of vintage techniques like the cyanotype to pioneering experiments with early digital photography.
This approach makes clear the innovative and stylistic breadth of his work, but it shortchanges the depth of his artistry and supplies little in the way of curatorial judgment about the strengths and weaknesses within his output.
It is easy to imagine an entire exhibition devoted to Sink's insider looks at Andy Warhol and the heady New York scene that surrounded the artist-provocateur in the 1980s. Sink met the artist during a visit to Fort Collins in 1981 and briefly became a part of his circle.
Some of these Warhol-related pieces, which have been shown in recent years at the Colorado State University Art Museum and Rule Gallery, have a snapshot immediacy to them while Sink inbued others, such as "Andy in L.A." (1981), with a more formal look.
Especially noteworthy within this body of work is what he calls his "Polaroid Famous Face Series" — informal portraits of New York celebrities that have a paparazzo spontaneity that still seems very contemporary.
A dozen of these Polaroids are on view, but, again, it is easy to envision a whole gallery devoted just to the series, along with more recent

A survey of Mark Sink's career at the Byers-Evans House Gallery offers works from 12 series within his output, including "Her Body Within 1," 1979, from a group of open-shutter works he calls "Painting With Light." (Photo courtesy of Byers-Evans House Gallery)

ones that Sink has taken of Denver art-world notables. A 20-year constant in Sink's work has been his use of Dianas — cheap, plastic cameras that produce a kind of soft, Pictorialist effect that the photographer has long fancied.
Included are 10 Diana-produced black-and-white images, including moody views of Central Park, Gramercy Park and the Brooklyn Bridge from the 1980s and '90s.
It is disappointing that the show includes just two examples of Sink's photograms, which are among the most striking subgroups within his output. These images are created by placing objects directly on photographic paper and exposing them to light, an approach popularized by Man Ray and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy early in the 20th century.
He used different kinds of bottles and glasses for a number of these images, such as "Wine Glass" (1996), creating an otherworldly, glowing effect. And in others, such as "Stars No. 1" (1996), he sprinkled flour, baking powder, salt and dust on the photographic paper, resulting in images that look stunningly celestial.
Despite whatever shortcomings this show might have, it does provide a quick, useful overview of Sink's work to date and, equally important, it whets the appetite for more.
Perhaps it will spur another institution, such as the Denver Art Museum, with its new photography department, to undertake a more considered look at an essential figure in Denver's contemporary photography scene.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com

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"mark sink photographs 1975-2010: encounters with the past."

Photography. Byers-Evans House Gallery, 1310 Bannock St. On view are nearly 50 black-and-white and color images spanning the noted Denver photographer's 35-year career and highlighting the diverse techniques and approaches with which he has worked. Through Oct. 31. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. Free. 303-620-4933 or historycolorado.org/be.

mark sink gallery talk.

11 a.m. Saturday. Free.

wet-plate collodion photography demonstration with sink and kristen hatgi.

Noon to 3 p.m. Oct. 16. Free. 303-620-4933 or historycolorado.org/be.

Read more: Showing of Mark Sink's photos just scratches surface - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/art/ci_16209425#ixzz117U630WV

Byers-Evans House Gallery presents “Mark Sink Photographs 1975- 2010: Encounters with the Past

 Byers-Evans House Gallery presents “Mark Sink Photographs 1975- 2010: Encounters with the Past

DENVER—Mark Sink Photographs 1975-2010: Encounters with the Past, will be on view in the Byers-Evans House Gallery, located at 1310 Bannock Street in Denver, September 3 through October 31.  A free opening evening reception from 5 – 9 p.m. on Friday, September 3, will be held in the gallery in conjunction with the Golden Triangle Museum District’s First Friday Art Walk.

The Byers-Evans House Gallery is pleased to present this sampling of photographs representing Sink’s 35-year career in Denver. Born in 1958, Sink’s photographic destiny was partly shaped by his family history. From a long family line of artists, Sink’s great-great-uncle was Samuel Finley Breese Morse, who is known as America’s “Father of Photography” and introduced the daguerreotype to this country in the 1850s. Sink’s great-grandfather was James L. Breese, a famous photographer who made waves in turn of the century New York. His mother is Denver painter Ann White and Sink’s father is a well known Denver architect.

Sink says when he received his first Diana camera as a child, his future was clear. After art school, the 1980s found Sink in the heady boom days of the New York art scene, experimenting with plastic toy cameras, working professionally as both a commercial and fine art photographer, and hanging out in Andy Warhol’s famous Factory scene. In the early 1990s, Sink returned to his hometown of Denver, where he worked with early digital cameras and created a series of  still life photographs inspired by Old Master Dutch paintings.

The latter half of the decade brought Sink into museum administration, as he was co-founder of the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver and formed his own community based art center, Gallery Sink. Inspired by the pictorialist traditions of his great grandfather, Sink made traditional landscapes and cyanotypes, as well as camera-less photograms. Photograms are made by laying objects directly on photographic paper and exposing it to sunlight.

With the closing of Gallery Sink, the artist returned to making photography full time in the new century. Sink embarked on a new series with his partner, Kristen Hatgi, using a 150 year old lens to create dreamy collodion wet plates with the technology of the 1860s. All of these chapters will be on view in the Gallery with techniques ranging from photo silkscreen, Polaroid’s, cyanotypes, silver prints, gravure, collodion wet plate and digital.

In Mark Sink Photographs 1975-2010: Encounters with the Past, the diverse techniques, eras and experiments come together under Sink’s unifying vision of beauty. “I am a gushy romantic,” Sink says. “The theme of this survey is to show my obsession and passion for capturing beauty.”
Sink’s work is in numerous museum collections as well as gallery solo and group shows in the US, South America and Europe. He is currently represented by G. Ray Hawkins in California, Robin Rice in New York, and Rule Gallery in Denver.
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What:  Mark Sink Photographs 1975- 2010: Encounters with the Past
Opens: September 3rd, 5-9pm

Where:  The Byers-Evans House Gallery, 1310 Bannock Street, Denver
When:  Sept. 3 –­ Oct. 31. Gallery open daily, Mon.­–Sat., 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Closed Sundays.
Special events: Evening receptions during the Golden Triangle Museum District’s First Friday Art Walks, Sept. 3 and Oct. 1 from 5 to 9 p.m.
Informal gallery talk on Photography Today, Oct. 2, at 11 a.m., Sink will use his own photographic timeline and provide insight into the techniques and stories displayed in the exhibition.
Cost:  Gallery admission and all special events are Free!

Byers-Evans House Museum
Open daily, Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  Closed Sundays.
Guided house tours 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.  Admission charged.
For further information, visit www.historycolorado.org/be or call (303) 620-4933.


History Colorado, the Colorado Historical Society, engages people in our State’s heritage through collecting, preserving, and discovering the past and providing perspectives for the future. Established in 1879, History Colorado is headquartered at the Colorado History Museum in Denver. This educational institution contains statewide historical museums and sites, educational programs, volunteer and membership opportunities, the Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, the Stephen H. Hart Research Library, and administers the State Historical Fund—a preservation-based grants program funded by limited stakes gaming tax revenues. Visit www.coloradohistory.org or call (303) 866-3682.

BECOMING VISIBLE

May 28th, 2010

HINTERLAND
3254 Walnut St.
Denver CO, 80205
720.309.1764
contact@hinterlandartspace.com

http://www.hinterlandartspace.com/html/2010_becoming_visible.html

BECOMING VISIBLE
there are many pathways to the garden Photography/Sculpture

Opening and closing included dreamland tonal ambience by Roger Green, and a theme based poetry reading by Carson Reed.

Nine subversive photographic artists form this incarnation of Heads of Hydra, and each Head creates new work.

Hanging sculpture brought to the show by Randy Rushton ties together the work of the different artists and carries the mysticism of ancient cedar and the eros of nature through the pathway into the garden.

The Heads of Hydra are:

David Zimmer
Cornelia Peterson
Mark Sink
Christopher R. Perez
Richard Peterson
John Babcock
Sabin Aell
Katie Taft
Norman Broomhall

Byers Evans House Gallery talk March 13th

Kristen Hatgi and Mark Sink , 2009                          Lewis Emory Walker, 1865

Lincoln in Focus:

Original Photographs of the President and the Civil War

March 13 from 12 to 2p.m. – Mark Sink and Kristen Hatgi
Historic Photography Demonstration and Talk

The majority of the prints in Lincoln in Focus are albumen prints created using the wet-plate

collodion process invented in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer. Contemporary Denver artists

Mark Sink and Kristen Hatgi will bring their 1860s vintage camera to the Byers-Evans House

Gallery to demonstrate how artists like Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner made their

photographs.  The program will include a talk on the history of photography and a discussion

of how Sink and Hatgi use this historic technique in their own art.

Program 12 to 2 pm.  Free admission.

February 5 through March 31, 2010

Byers-Evans House Gallery

Open Monday through Saturday, 10 am to 4 pm

1310 Bannock Street  /  Denver, CO  /  303.620.4933

www.coloradohistory.org/be

www.kristenhatgi.com

www.gallerysink.com