A plywood facsimile of a city street dominates the entrance to this year’s Pulse Art Fair. ‘City Surface’ by Lead Pencil Studio recreates objects from a typical city street in plywood, reproducing the hobbled-together clutter of an urban environment that functions through an unlikely combination of elements. This piece is the perfect metaphor for art fairs which collect an ungainly mass of elements into one setting. The logistics of art fairs are daunting: too many exhibitors in too small of a space with too many viewers trying to squeeze past each other to view too much art. Pulse managed to balance all of these contradictory elements.
The exhibitors trended towards work that explored craftsmanship with a strong showing of painting – including a collection of small abstractions by Andrew Masullo (currently in the Whitney Biennial) at Daniel Weinberg Gallery and Michelle Muldrow’s paintings of abstracted store aisles at Jen Bekman Gallery.
The taxidermy horse sculpture with giant anime eyes and roller skates for hooves entitled “Cupcake” by the artist Tinkebell at Torch Gallery of Amsterdam was a huge draw. Its neighbor in the next booth, the figures of “Brighton Beach Bench” by Will Kurtz at Mike Weiss Gallery, was a group of life-sized figures covered with collaged magazine pages. There was an element of subverted realism to both pieces that was heightened by their unplanned and unrelated proximity to each other.
Carrie Secrist Gallery showed colored pencil works by Anne Lindberg that were accompanied by a matching sculpture composed of colored thread stretched across the booth. The thread appeared to be drawn lines that playfully distorted vision from a distance.
The Impulse section of the fair featured emerging galleries and solo artist shows. Brooklyn was represented by Black and White Gallery featuring sculptures by Peter Brock, Causey Contemporary representing Jordan Eagles, and Porter/Contemporary showing paintings by Jason Bryant which combined images from classic cinema with skateboard graphics.
