It is dawn and Blue Panther is up, again, for the third day in a row. "I need to be in contact with my artists and most of them are halfway across the world." Each day Suzy Kassem, or Blue Panther as she is widely known in the underground art world, reaches out through the internet and discovers new artistic talent that inevitably wows the audiences who attend her bi-monthly art gallery experiences. Her next curated art event is happening July 7th in Los Angeles. "I think people are really going to feel this show," she comments in between her sporadic typing on the computer keyboard, " It is happening during the harmonic shift on 7-7-07."
That "shift" is a large part why Blue Panther has decided to go all out this time with her latest art event creation known as Panthaland. "I like bringing people together for events that aren't just typical in nature. In Los Angeles, you can go to a hundred different events in the same night and feel like you never left the last one. Everything is a carbon copy of each other." Blue Panther's goal is to blend artwork and activities to help create experiences that people wouldn't normally be able to find on a typical night out. And it seems to be working. Blue's last event took place in Dubai and has sparked an entire community of underground artists in a region that, some say, still sits in the dark ages. "Dubai is much different than the rest of the Middle East. It's transformation is wondrous and scary at the same time. It's the kind of place where extreme poverty exists alongside extreme wealth. It doesn't surprise me that graffiti and street culture is blowing up there."
Blue Panther tells me that her Panthaland event will introduce new street artists that possess incredible talent. "I remember I had one artist in Somalia I found through MySpace. He worked in an internet cafe in Mogadishu and they had Photoshop on one of their computers. He taught himself the program and would send me these incredible graphic illustrations and pictures of walls he and his crew would do throughout the city. It was amazing."
Panthaland will be happening on July 7th in downtown Los Angeles at Crash Mansion LA. Over seventy graffiti artists from around the world will have their works displayed for one evening. There will also be live performances by Ladybug Mecca of Digable Planets and legendary female lyricist Bahamadia. More information can be found at the official website, www.panthaland.com.
