Wednesday August 12, 2009 (7 pm to 11 pm) is the grand opening of a unique mixed-use space called LIBERTÉ Gallery to exhibit artist-turned-gallery-owner, Passia Pandora’s photomedia sexual portraiture. Her gallery reflects the essence of her current artwork, as well as future pieces she has in mind. Thematically, she wanted a gallery name that was not too specific or too general, while being void of familiar connotations and was available as a URL. Quite a tall order, but liberté, French for ‘liberty’ is ‘the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions’ is the perfect fit. The name is cosmopolitan, meaningful and yet allows for a wide interpretation of subjects.

When Passia moved to Vancouver last year from Victoria, she came with the plan to have her artwork showing in a gallery during the 2010 Olympics, but after making many inquiries, she discovered that most of the galleries were either already booked up or did not exhibit sexual art. She investigated renting a retail space to create a traditional gallery, but found the cost was prohibitive.

Then in May 2009, Pandora showed her new photo series ‘Talon: an exhibition of Domination and submission’, which garnered both a good turnout of art patrons, gallery owners and the media, including an interview with the Vancouver Sun. Passia’s work is reminiscent of the work of Robert Mapplethorpe (November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989), an American photographer, known for stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers (especially orchids and calla lilies), homoerotic naked men, BDSM acts and classical nudes. Mapplethorpe also photographed celebrities: including Andy Warhol, Deborah Harry, Richard Gere, Peter Gabriel, Grace Jones, and most notably, American singer–songwriter, poet and visual artist, Patti Smith. Like Mapplethorpe, Passia’s photomedia plays with the concept of sex merging with sensuality, eroticism merging with the edges of pornography and the voyeurism of the camera merging with inner revelation.

The venue she selected to hang the ‘Talon’ show was at the Artiste, located at 2050 Scotia Street, in one of their live/work studio apartments. It turned out to offer the perfect layout, location and price point for the new LIBERTÉ Gallery.

Along with the usual news releases and personal email invitations, Passia also utilizes social media with her blogs and a Facebook Event to promote the LIBERTÉ Gallery launch. Passia says that art gallery events can be a bit dry with the usual glass of wine and stroll around the gallery. So for this inaugural event she is offering great art, great food by Chef Kirk, great ambience with mood-enhancing lighting and great music from Oliver Swain and Jeremy Penner. Oliver plays the double bass and banjo, as well as has a great voice, while Jeremy is a master violinist.

Passia’s intention for this multi-faceted LIBERTÉ Gallery is to tantalize guests to stay all night long (well, almost all night), get a taste for future events and ask to be on the guest list for upcoming LIBERTÉ Gallery private art dinner parties.

For more information about the new LIBERTÉ Gallery, visit www.LiberteGallery.com.

Alliances in the Arts Increase Audience Awareness

In addition to the LIBERTÉ Gallery launch, the three previous ArtConverge articles demonstrate how alliances in the arts help increase audience awareness. First we had “40+8 Hours of Food & Flicks” at grace-gallery, a strategic alliance between a private chef Chef Todd of Vancouver-based 12b, who broke his record to cook for 48 hours straight and a group art show about food at www.grace-gallery.com.

Then, it was “Pencil on Paper” at Elliott Louis Gallery, part of 17 drawing exhibitions with works of over 80 artists featured at the first-ever “Drawing Festival” in Vancouver. The Elliott Louis Gallery show was curated by art historian and joint venture partner, Lynn Ruscheinsky, Ph.D. at www.elliottlouis.com.

The latest example was “Cookies & Dream” at Ayden Gallery, Vancouver, which was the result of a collaboration of 12 artists working individually, but collectively to illustrate a poem called “Dream”, within a children’s picture book theme. The art show was a joint venture between Nguyen Le, curator of www.wecandoubleyou.com and Ken Lum of www.aydengallery.com.

LIBERTÉ gallery, grace-gallery, Eliott Louis Gallery and Ayden Gallery, all leverage existing resources through their joint venture partnerships to create wider appeal and ultimately to draw in more guests. This online art magazine also exemplifies joint ventures for audience development. It was relaunched for less than $200 cash and with in-kind sponsorships. These venues are located in Vancouver Main Attractions for the Arts.

Gothic Lolita top image, Art Collectors in middle and bottom images

I met Malcolm Parry of the Vancouver Sun who interviewed Passia Pandora for the opening of LIBERTÉ gallery and me for the relaunch of ArtConverge (formerly Artistrun), which I co-founded with Dr. Lycia Trouton in 2000, after graduating from SEARCH (Alliance for Arts). We both remarked that Vancouver is not a boring city because we know where the fun is. Here’s his write up below about the launch and art show:

Malcolm Parry, Vancouver Sun – Saturday, August 15th

DOMINANT FLAVOUR: Photographer Passia Pandora’s new Liberte Gallery — www.libertegallery.com — is just outside the South False Creek region. It’s across Main Street on the fifth floor of that 100-artist complex, 2050 Scotia Street.The black-and-white works from Victoria expat Pandora’s Canon 40D camera are outside the usual photographic canon too. Her oeuvre is human domination and submission, and she’s expert at it, as proven by Liberte’s ultra-explicit debut exhibition, Talon. Eschewing her subjects’ exotic apparatus, Pandora wore a Calvin Klein black cocktail dress to the event. Just as prudently, she endorsed the “Safe, Sane and Consensual” rule that keeps domination-submission devotees within pre-agreed pain and control limits.

Liza J. Lee – Director / Blogger

END NOTES:

http://www.mapplethorpe.org/exhibitions.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/columnists/Malcom_Parry.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Warmup+Canada+Line+opening+raises+reported/1897172/story.html

http://www.vanmag.com/author/malcolm_parry

Liza J. Lee is the Co-founder and Blogger for Artistrun ArtConverge.

© 2009 ArtConverge (ISSN 1918-9273‏)

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Tags: erotic art, LIBERTE Gallery, robert mapplethorpe, sexual portraiture

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