Pacific Art Collective - Cultural Xposure Through Unity of Art

Magali Charmot, Stop Art Gallery manager, will be out of a job when she returns to San Jose after summer break. The San Jose State University advertising sophomore has worked at Stop Art practically since the day it opened at Santana Row last November. Now the French-owned art venue is nearly done teetering, as it is set to plunge off the edge of San Jose's constantly endangered art scene. Charmot confirmed to Eye that owner Emmanuel Flipo and his wife, Lilou Vidal, who own the gallery, are throwing in the towel and moving back to France.

Charmot wouldn't say what happened to convince Flipo to leave. But she does say running the gallery seemed difficult for him all along. "I think the gallery probably would have been better in San Francisco," she says. "Unfortunately, the time for being here in San Jose wasn't the best, with the war going on." She adds that as a French immigrant, she's been confronted by anti-French freaks in the Bay Area. "Also, the audience is not the best because San Jose is a pretty conservative area," Charmot observes.

Some might argue that this is a reason for working harder to keep cultural exposure around. William Rowan, for instance, the curator and director of year-old Pacific Art Collective favors more rather than less. Rowan is putting on what may be Flipo's last live art performance at his Santana Row gallery. Flipo and Vidal are currently scouting out business prospects in Montreuil, a suburb of Paris. They'll fly back in time for Rowan's May 3 "Cultural Xposure Through Unity of Art" event at Stop Art.

As for the future of Stop Art's space, management at the thriving Peter Max Gallery across the street has been eyeing Stop Art's larger digs. "We're interested," says Peter Max's chief operator Mykel Hibbard.