Student-run VAV Gallery needs help

By Robert Winters

You never know what you’ll find at the VAV Gallery, the lively student-operated gallery on the ground floor of Concordia’s Visual Arts Building. From refined paintings and photographs to the most challenging conceptual art, the VAV presents the best of student artists’ work.

There’s a fast rhythm to the gallery’s life that always keeps it fresh. A new show is put up every weekend, and every Tuesday evening there’s a vernissage, a party where art school types enjoy microbrewery beer, fresh art and talk with friends and other people from Concordia and the Montreal art world.

But this year, behind the white walls, track lights and the kaleidoscope of new shows, financial strains have kept co-directors Doria Cheney and Carla Benzan hopping to keep the gallery on track.

The problem was that this was the year the VAV was supposed to be self-financing, after a three-year transition period when funding was gradually reduced. The VAV was not able to come up with such a plan, leaving Carla and Doria scrambling to find funding for operational costs and for special shows and events.

Levy

This scramble to keep the gallery afloat has led the Fine Arts Student Alliance to request that a referendum be held in March for a special VAV fee levy for Fine Arts students. Chris Godziuk, FASA’s president, told Thursday Report that he expects students to respond positively to this initiative.

Rather than having VAV’s part-time co-directors hunting for money each year, funding “will come directly from the people who benefit from it the most: fine arts students,” Godziuk said. (Although the proposed fee levy amount has not been finalized, it is expected to cover only basic operating costs for the gallery, or about $25,000 a year, one VAV co-director said.)

To help the gallery get through this transition year, the Concordia Students Union “generously donated a sum of money to help meet the VAV’s operating costs,” FASA’s Godziuk said. However, he added that “the VAV must find a way to stay afloat on its own.”

Carla and Doria said in an interview that it is hard for the gallery to develop a self-financing model.

It can’t operate like a commercial gallery by gearing toward selling art as this could skew the choice of work in a commercial direction. As for corporate sponsorships, Doria said researching and applying for them can be time-consuming. As well, they raise serious issues about independence at the student-run space, Carla said.

The gallery is managing to upgrade some facilities. The VAV’s co-directors said they have secured funding for the purchase of a $5,000 digital projector, which will allow the gallery to show new media work. And a project has begun to develop a blackout system to block light from the gallery for video projections.

But a proposal to renovate the gallery is going to have to wait. The VAV’s co-directors say the walls are “severely cracked” and pockmarked, even after they are re-plastered, because of the constant wear and tear of mounting new shows. As well, the floor is showing its age.

“The linoleum is like a 1970s kitchen,” Carla said, adding the floor is “scratched and gouged.” The gallery has been told there will be money for renovation after the completion of the new fine arts and engineering.

VAV board member Reuben Looyenga, a final-year Studio Arts and Art History student, said the board is organizing a fundraising party on Feb. 12. The event will feature a benefit concert for special programming and an auction of artwork.

The VAV’s strong will to survive, and thrive, is one reason that FASA president Chris Godziuk is confident the March referendum on the fee levy will pass.

“The VAV Gallery is run by students for the students and I strongly believe that students within the faculty will come out and vote in March to show their support,” Godziuk said.