Having an art show at a high-end car dealership doesn’t seem like a recipe for a marriage made in Heaven, but Flag Stop and Lexus are at least holding hands – and there’s every indication that the three-day event (Sept. 2-4) will be rewarding and memorable.
The committee that conceived and organized Flag Stop took their name and basic concept from the impromptu train stops, often made where they were least expected. As associate director Nick Lisica puts it, “our modern interpretation of Flag Stop is an unconventional stop for art enthusiasts.”
The initial idea, says Bernard Fallon, was for “an alternative art event that we could do in a non-art museum or (non-) art gallery setting.” They set their sights on downtown or Old Torrance with its many vacant storefronts. “We were looking at warehouses and factories and office spaces and empty buildings,” Fallon continues. Some of the businesses were encouraging, but one day things changed when Jody Wiggins drove by South Bay Lexus, which is near enough to the Torrance airport to be mistaken for an international terminal.
By this time the Flag Stop committee must have been thinking large scale, because that’s what struck Wiggins when she noticed the dealership. Not long afterwards, Flag Stop’s director Tm Gratkowski sat down with South Bay Lexus senior vice president and general manager Bob Wills, who must have figured that the resulting publicity could only be a good thing.
“This nailed it, because it was all self-contained,” Fallon says of the expansive property. “Once Tm and Jody talked with Bill, that was it.” They knew they needn’t keep searching.
Gratkowski says that this was what they were looking for from the start – a significant partnership. “They’ve been great all along the way; they’ve been very supportive, very encouraging, and pretty much giving us the leeway to do whatever we want.”
Which is? To place art in the large, spacious lobby, in one of the long, gallery-like side rooms, and in a clean, warehouse-sized chamber around the side of the building and towards the back. “I think it’s over 5,000 square feet,” Gratkowski adds. “That’s going to be one single, major exhibition,” with the art of Bob Zoell as selected by former L.A. County Museum of Art curator Howard Fox.
“And then we have 50 containers that are going to wrap around the building to the side.”
Some of those who attend Flag Stop may be torn between buying a canvas or picking out a shiny new car. The well-to-do among us could even do both.
Bringing them together
As for those 50 containers, they’re referred to throughout as pods, and Pods also turns out to be the name of a moving and storage company, one of Flag Stop’s sponsors. As for what this means in layman’s terms:
“Imagine the back of a truck, not the whole truck, being dropped off at your house,” Gratkowski says. “You put in your stuff. They then come pick up that thing, take it wherever you want, whether that be across the country or around the block. So in essence it’s a moving container.” However, “It’s what we call micro-galleries. They are small, self-contained, watertight spaces [and] we saw the opportunity to show art in them.”
Although each pod is roughly the size of a large walk-in closet, filling up 50 of them with art should be quite a challenge. But apparently that will not be a problem.
“There’s galleries from all over the country,” Gratkowski says. “We have people from New York, from London, Chicago. There will be over 500 works of art, and there will be upwards of 150 artists. There’s four major curators from Los Angeles” – and, in addition to Howard Fox, Gratkowski is referring to William Moreno, Scott Canty, and Lily Siegel. There are also lots and lots of guest curators, which makes this exhibition rather unique.
“Part of the original idea,” Gratkowski says, “was rather than pick the art we picked the curators… so we are in essence curating the curators, we’re not curating the art. We’ve asked very specific art curators to participate; we’ve also asked artists and independent curators to put together their own ideas of these independent shows, where maybe they don’t have the experience or hadn’t had the opportunity to do that. So it allows them to put together an idea for a show, right up next to Howard Fox or Bill Moreno, who are very experienced in museums around the country. So that’s actually the challenge we put forth, [to give] people that opportunity to get some recognition with all these other ideas that are out there.”
You chose the curators, and they chose the artists. How did that work?
“We asked people to submit work,” Lisica replies, “and curators to curate shows and submit them. We kind of saw recurring themes in a lot of things,” which means that some artists were diverted towards one curator and other artists to another. Like sorting through mail or directing traffic. Mix and match. “So we said, hey, your work is very similar to these other two people: You guys should maybe get together and do a show.
“And so in the pods there are a few shows where, essentially, we curated the artists based on what they submitted. That was our way of making sure we didn’t exclude too many people. We saw an opportunity for them to work as a small group rather than on their own. But for the most part we just [contacted] curators – we all told our friends, and a lot of people told their friends and so on, and they kind of piled up, and we spent a few days looking through everything and putting it all together.”
“Take away two or three months of figuring out exactly what we wanted to do,” says Gratkowski, “and in essence you’re looking at roughly six months to make this happen, which I think is a remarkable feat.”
“Starting from nothing,” Lisica adds. “There was no organization saying, Here’s ten grand, go have fun.”
“I think a lot of people seemed quite dubious about whether we could make this go,” says Wiggins, “but we were very determined.”
Birgit Amadori – whom to my great pleasure I’ve finally been able to meet in person – is the treasurer for the Flag Stop committee, and officially the Chair of Sponsorship and Hospitality. She’s proud of the fact that they were able to raise money – through family, friends, small donations – without having to rely on a corporate sponsor. “Now I think we’ve achieved the best possible (solution), which is artists for artists,” and she points to the successful fundraiser that was held recently at PS Zask Gallery in Rolling Hills Estates. “And I hope that if we have another Flag Stop that this can set an example that you can do something without anything.” Or, as Lisica said, “Starting from nothing.”
And art for everyone
“The Switzer Learning Center is our non-profit, number one seed that’s also helped us with donations,” Wiggins says. She’s referring to the non-profit, special education school, which in this case is helping and being helped in turn.
“In some ways, Switzer became our charitable organization,” Gratkowski explains. “We were counting on the community, getting what we could, and also trying to give back to it immediately. Switzer was there for us and we’re trying to be there for them, too.”
“They’re going to be having their own pod with student work,” Wiggins says. “We’re collecting bottles [for] them, and they’re going to have a hundred decorative wine bottles and artwork from the children.”
“The way we’re situating their pod,” Lisica says, “is it’s amongst the galleries, the international artists and such… The kids, they’re very much a part of our event. The artwork in their pod, it’s not hidden in the corner, it’s not out of the way; it’s part of the main thing, everyone will see it. Those kids, their work will be seen by all these artists and professionals here.”
In short, the Switzer children will get a boost to their self-esteem and, who knows, maybe their career in the arts.
All aboard!
“I do think that the curators that we were able to secure for this definitely helped give us some credibility,” Gratkowski. “It’s not just credibility, it was the interest of the community at large,” and that, he emphasizes, resulted from early on landing some prominent names to curate the art and artists, “making the event one that everyone is now asking about, wondering why they didn’t jump on earlier.”
Like the Power of Art, brought to us yearly by the Redondo Beach Art Group, Flag Stop is featuring live entertainment. Event planner Tiel Park has lined up an array of performers, including Phoenyx (belly dancing) and singer Lorenzo on Saturday, and jazz-blues musicians the Kirk Nelson Quartet plus flamenco guitarist Goh Kurosawa on Sunday. Food trucks include Komodo (gourmet fusion), Dogtown Dogs (hot dogs), and Nom Nom Truck (Vietnamese sandwiches). And, because it’s bound to be a warm afternoon, a pair of dessert trucks as well – Tango Mango on Saturday and Coolhaus on Sunday.
Locally, RBAG kind of sewed up the whistle stop idea by moving from venue to venue, notably the Edison power plant and the Performing Arts Center in Redondo Beach. However, what’s most important is to have yet another arts fair, so to speak, that highlights this little pocket of the universe and showcases its talented artists.
“The people that are doing all these various things for Flag Stop are really in the South Bay right now, in one way or another,” Gratkowski says, “whether it’s people living here [or] people working here. Somehow, we’re all connected to the community.”
That said, “the general consensus was [that] it only made sense to try to do this in the South Bay,” Gratkowski continues, “and specifically that is Torrance for most of us. It’s kind of the center of where we’re all at. Beyond this, though, as the name implies, we hope it will go at least to other cities, if not other states. I think it has that potential because it’s not dependent on any one place. I think other people could work with us and develop the same idea for their own community, just to bring more attention to the arts that are kind of hidden in those areas, with a chance to shine.”
Flag Stop, “an alternative contemporary art event,” takes place on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 3 and 4, from 12 noon to 6 p.m. both days at South Bay Lexus, 24777 Crenshaw Blvd., Torrance. Free. There’s a VIP reception on Friday, Sept. 2, from 6 to 9 p.m., in honor of the artists and curators. Go to flagstopart.com or facebook.com/FlagStopArt. ER
