DeSoto’s the vehicle to bridge art gap

FIRST THURSDAY • Fifth Avenue Street Fair could bring Pearl, Old Town scenes together

By Joseph Gallivan

The Portland Tribune, Jul 31, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

COURTESY OF LAURA RUSSO Gallery

Portland artist Louis Bunce would be 100 this year. “Untitled River lands” is one of his paintings at Laura Russo Gallery.

This Thursday is a good time to test the theory that the new DeSoto Project will form an art-walk bridge between Old Town and the Pearl.

That’s because the Fifth Avenue Street Fair takes place then, too, from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. between West Burnside and Northwest Glisan streets. The fair celebrates the completion of the new MAX tracks on that part of the avenue, although trains won’t be running until September 2009.

Local businesses will be glad to wave goodbye to the flaggers and railings and get on with becoming — pop culture-wise — one of the fastest moving parts of town, where the spotless sneaker set shares space with the no-deodorant crew, all in the pursuit of art.

The Portland Art Center has exceeded expectations in the quantity and quality of its programming and in two short years has become a destination. August’s shows include an installation called “The Push” by Vancouver, British Columbia’s Keith Langergraber, which comments on tourism as it affects native peoples with a wave of old Nike shoes, surf stuff and other junk.

Another large installation going up is “Space Garbage 3” by Portland’s Jubal Nance, which uses modern disposable materials to create a pretend space station.

First Thursday reception 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.; regular hours noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, through Aug. 31, Portland Art Center, 32 N.W. Fifth Ave., 503-236-3322, free

Across the road at the Upper Playground clothing store, the Fifty24PDX Gallery has a photography show by Ricky Powell, once known as “the fifth Beastie Boy.”

Powell’s photos of the pioneers of hip-hop in New York make for a cool history lesson. If you had a time machine, would you go back to hip-hop before the big money arrived?

Powell will be in town all week and will present a slide show in the gallery at 4 p.m. Saturday.

First Thursday reception 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.; regular gallery hours noon to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday or by appointment, through Sept. 30, Fifty24PDX Gallery, 23 N.W. Fifth Ave., 503-548-4835

Even in drive-by mode the brand-new DeSoto Project sucks up a minimum of an hour of your time, so if you’re really pushed just see Charles A. Hartman Fine Art’s debut show of photos and photograms by Camille Solyagua.

The delicate images of plants and animals revel in fine detail. Sea horses and bizarrely bandaged birds give the work a Victorian feel — part “Alice in Wonderland,” part Sherlock Holmes.

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