OUT AND ABOUT

U-Holler

By Chris Thompson

The FAZE project has appeared at the edges of Portland’s First Friday art events over the last couple of months. For their first two incarnations, at HUB and at the 547 Congress Street studios, you had to seek them out.

No longer. Last Friday, taking everything Mother Nature could set in their path, the FAZE crowd mounted a logistical effort worthy of the Mongol army in order to bring art to the masses. It would have made Genghis Khan proud: everything was mobile — art, entertainment, and publicity.

Two U-Haul vans were rented for the day and outfitted with banners bearing the logos of the FAZE sponsors, the size of each determined according to the heft of the donation. Inside each were makeshift galleries showing works by six young artists. Upon arrival at the first target, the park on the corner of Exchange and Middle, the doors went up and the band got down.

To the sounds of snare drums and falling rain, a few bewildered onlookers began to wander closer — some for the free condoms distributed by the AIDS Project, some to panhandle, some to watch. A few even lumbered up the gangplanks and into the U-Hauls for a gallery visit.

FAZE co-organizer Carl Haase packaged bits of garbage collected during a late-night flyer-posting journey. Fellow co-organizer Daniel Pepice’s video work “Excess,” starring the artist in suit and tie with head under the tub faucet trying to drink every drop of water blasting out, was a fitting answer to the surrounding downpour. The organizers promoted the event tirelessly: business cards, pocket-sized artist checklists and contact info, even a sticker designed by co-organizer Satoru Nihei with “FAZE” in Japanese characters, bearing their web address.

The horde also hit Monument and Congress Squares. At each, Pepice wielded the megaphone and alerted an unknowing citizenry to the fact that this was, indeed, the only mobile gallery in Portland.

They ended their victorious campaign against the sedentary art world as would the soldiers of the steppes: with drink, lots of it, at the final event of the evening, the after-party at the Skinny.