MIAMI, FLA.- PULSE Contemporary Art Fair opened today at its new home in mid-Miami Beach, celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the fair in Miami. As part of a focus on providing a platform for discovery, PULSE Miami Beach’s community of exhibitors are presented in an integrated format at its new beachfront location on Indian Beach Park. A signature series of events and programming offers visitors ample opportunity to interact with artists and exhibitors and to learn more about the art market as a whole.
PULSE Miami Beach kicked off with its signature Private Preview Brunch on Thursday, December 4th from 9am to 1pm. The Brunch served as an exclusive first look at the fair for VIPs and invited guests before the fair opens. On Friday morning at 10am, the fair will host an Artist Morning where a select group of exhibiting artists will be on-site to engage with visitors and offer further insight into the concepts and processes behind their work. Daily curator-led tours with Lucas Arevalo, Program Manager at Marte Contemporary, at the Art Museum in El Salvador, will allow guests the opportunity to gain further understanding of the artwork presented.
PULSE Miami Beach’s focus on artists is enhanced by the fact that 80% of its galleries are exhibiting three artists or fewer. This curatorial intention allows for the thoughtful presentation of work and promotes discovery throughout the fair.
Women take center stage at this year’s fair. Over 50 female artists, working in a full range of techniques including painting, sculpture and installation, are being exhibited at PULSE Miami Beach. Notables include Maya Hayuk at CC Gallery with colorful textile-inspired art; Jennifer Dalton at WINKLEMAN GALLERY with thought-provoking conceptual installations; Genevieve Chua at GUSFORD | los angeles with nature-inspired sculpture; and Lauren Fensterstock at Sienna Patti Contemporary with large-scale dark-hued cave-inspired sculptures. Responding to the recent dialog about the state of women in the art world, PULSE Miami Beach has provided a supportive platform to showcase this talented group of international artists.
Photography again has a significant presence at PULSE representing over 25% of the works at the fair. Several notable photographers have work on view including TED prize winner Edward Burtynsky at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery whose riveting environmental photographs capture views of the earth altered by mankind, and Hendrik Kerstens at Danziger Gallery whose images of his posed daughter, photographed at different stages throughout her life, reference Dutch masters and Italian Renaissance portraiture.
Also of note is the reappearance of joyful and colorful works at the fair as represented by the paintings by Russell Tyler of Ballast Projects and Andrew Masullo of Phillip Slein Gallery respectively; and playful sculptures by Ricardo Paniagua of DIA Galleria and Doreen McCarthy of Heskin Contemporary. The presentation of these timely works challenges the art world’s long-held reservations about art that is both beautiful and accessible.
A central feature for discovery at PULSE Miami Beach is Perspectives, a series of intimate discussions exploring the overarching theme of “Value” within the contemporary art market. Led by prominent art world insiders, these conversations grant fairgoers access to critical and current issues within the art industry.
Perspectives topics have been developed from naturally-occurring themes within the fair. Women in Art, hosted by Bonnie Clearwater, Director and Chief Curator of the NSU Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale, will take place on Friday December 5 at 12pm. Joining the discussion will be visual artist Jennifer Dalton, represented by WINKLEMAN GALLERY and Andrew Russeth from ARTnews. Art and Environment will be the focus of the first Saturday, December 6th Perspectives discussion which will be hosted by Dr. Glenn Adamson, Director of the Museum of Arts and Design New York along who will be in conversation with Alfonso Medina, Director of T38studio, creator of the Casa installation for Projects and the designer of the Perspective Lounge. Digital Art in a Changing World hosted by Lindsay Howard, New Media Curator, along with New York Magazine Editor at Large, Carl Swanson will follow at 3pm. This discussion will explore emerging digital trends and the impact the internet has had on shaping art and culture. Closing the series on Sunday, December 7th will be a special session, New Trends in Valuation, where Helen Toomer, PULSE Contemporary Art Fair Director and Lindsay Howard discuss the roles of new digital artists in the development of innovative pricing models.
PLAY, the fair’s showcase for video and new media art is guest curated by new media scholar Lindsay Howard. The series of video-based works on view were chosen from exhibitor submissions. Howard’s selections relate to the challenges of data, content and image “oversaturation” as it relates to digital information. The videos are also viewable on PULSE’s Tumblr and in a dedicated screening area at the fair.
This year PULSE presents four installations that call attention to human pressure on, and our interaction with, the environment as part of its PROJECTS platform. Alfonso Medina’s Casa, a group of simply constructed casitas, shadows the exterior of the exhibition space calling to attention the rapid expansion of self-made housing in Latin America and the region’s relationship to the art world and Miami in particular. Medina has also designed a set of modular seating structures, built to encourage community and conversation, for the Perspectives Lounge. Another prominent PROJECT is Shayne Dark’s Tangle Wood, 2010, a large wooden sculpture painted in a rich shade of blue, with interlaced logs that form a dynamic structure. The installation is a response to the log driving activities that took place on North American rivers during the development of the paper industry. Jenna Spevack’s Birds of Brooklyn: Migration Miami, 2013 is an audio installation that brings the sounds of displaced, endangered, and bygone birds to sites in Brooklyn and Miami. Bird songs that are rarely heard in densely populated metropolitan neighborhoods are projected to create a dialogue between the feathered ghosts from these two areas. Visitors may hear over twenty different recordings, including the Northern Bobwhite, Eastern Bluebird, Cape Sable Sparrow, and Florida Scrub-Jay. The project aims to reconnect city dwellers with sounds of native birds and raise awareness about declining bird populations in urban environments.
On Saturday, December 6th, the fair will announce the winner of the PULSE Prize. This cash award will be granted to an artist of distinction featured in a solo exhibition at the fair. This year’s nominees include Andrea Canepa, Rosa Santos; David Magnusson, Pictura Gallery; Genevieve Chua, GUSFORD | los angeles [IMPULSE]; Jennifer Dalton, WINKLEMAN GALLERY; Johannes Domenig, GALERIE FREY; Jinny Yu, Art Mûr; John Mills, Rosamund Felsen Gallery; Ken Matsubara, MA2Gallery; Lisa Levy, Schroeder Romero; Maya Hayuk, CC Gallery; Lothar Osterburg, Lesley Heller Workspace, Mia Rosenthal, Gallery Joe; Michael Van den Besselaar, Black & White Gallery/Project Space; Natalia Arias, Nohra Haime Gallery; Russell Tyler, Ballast Projects [POINTS]; Tm Gratkowski, Walter Maciel Gallery; and Tom Fruin, Paul Loya Gallery.
