Lawn art at the Pulse fair

Sometimes when you bite into an apple the crunch that hits the edge on your jaw awakens you. The red skin of the fruit glistens like a jewel and chunks of sweetness slide down your throat. The Pulse Art Fair was the apple of Miami last week. Fresh. Organic. Awakening.  And small enough to navigate and still appreciate in a couple hours, with time to savor jumping onto one of the red hammocks assembled on the lawn at the Ice Palace (this year’s venue) in the Design District of North Miami. Even the naked girls painted Picasso-like on the lawn seemed natural. Pulse, now in its fifth year, really seemed to capture a certain zeitgeist.

Inside a wonder of delights, a candy store of colorful and questioning pieces from 89 galleries throughout the globe, from Miami and New York to Austria, Majorca, Spain, and the Far East. Some that captured the eye included a boom box made of paper material by Kiel Johnson, a neon bookcase by Airan Kang, James Dean posers in black and white by Bruce Davidson, themes on broken glass by Jordi Alcaraz, a painting entitled “Sacred Pools Turkey” by Massimo Vitali of detailed waders that truly pull you into the water, Leo Villareal’s neon orange rectangle, even NYC’s own Jeremy Kost, who assembled an image of a live trannie via polaroids. Chistopher Mir’s “The Dream of You is Real”– with an old man before a rainbow, mountains, and helicopter– hinted at a resurrection theme. The whole thing felt very NOW. Thus, I suppose, properly titled “Pulse.” Outtakes in slide show below.