PULSE Prize in honor of Adriaan Van der Have

PULSE Miami Announces Relocation to The Ice Palace for its Fifth Edition
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NEW YORK, NY.- Helen Allen, Director of PULSE Contemporary Art Fair announced today that PULSE Miami is taking over The Ice Palace in downtown Miami. The large venue offers PULSE a more dynamic space for the exhibition of art and is conveniently located within minutes of the Venetian and MacArthur Causeways to Miami Beach. The layout in the former ice factory, built in the early 1920’s, will be designed to utilize the vast outdoor area to enhance visitors’ experience and additional cultural programming. In just five years, PULSE Miami has grown into a major international exhibition, which has frequently been hailed as the most significant art fair in Miami after Art Basel Miami Beach.
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“We are thrilled to be moving to The Ice Palace”, said Helen Allen. We are planning to work on the space to maximize its full potential by implementing a series of improvements such as the layout, lighting, and wider aisles. The caliber of exhibitors we are bringing will undoubtedly allow us to produce an incredible fair. We are also pleased to remain the anchor of the Miami/Wynwood area”.
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The Ice Palace Film Studios, typically referred to as The Ice Palace, is a former ice factory centrally located in Miami’s Media and Entertainment District. It stands at the heart of the new cultural center, neighboring the Miami Art Museum, CIFO, the Symphony Theatre and The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami Dade County. Boasting over 145,000 square feet, Art Deco architecture and verdant lawns, it will constitute an exceptional and easily accessible setting for PULSE Miami.
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PULSE Miami 2009 will feature over 75 exhibitors in its main section, with an additional 10 galleries in its IMPULSE section. The Fair will also present its signature programs: the installations and large-scale sculpture program, PULSE Performance, PULSE Play, and, on Saturday, December 5, 2009, it will award the PULSE Prize in honor of Adriaan Van der Have of TORCH GALLERY who passed away this spring.

Reflections on Torch - from Steven Lowy (1)

First Meeting

I first met Adriaan at the ArtCologne of 1989. He was hard to miss.

He was exhibiting three artists, as I remember it. Servaas Kunsthandel was showing stacked cans of FishAir. Ingold Airlines featured a mock up of their airplane hangar, complete with windsock, and the Banco di Oklahoma was selling securities in a manner not unlike that which recently brought down the American economy. Basically, the gallery was exhibiting three conceptual art corporations, artwork indebted to my hero, Marcel Duchamp.

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Then there was Adriaan, a giant of a man, whose shoes were immense and whose shirt , fastened with a bolo tie adorned with an image of Jesus Christ, was always soiled at the solar plexus from fast food eaten too quickly at the fair between sales. My assistant that year, my best friend Bill Rogers, who I had invited to join me because of his impeccable German, agreed that we had to get to know this guy. Of course, Adriaan also had a gorgeous assistant. Bill’s mission - to meet the assistant and arrange a gallerist dinner.

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So began what would be an amazing twenty year adventure with the man we lovingly called El Torcho, his rat pack and an unofficial posse20that we dubbed the A-Team.. This November would have been our twentieth anniversary as friends and conspirators. This is the first of a series of reminiscences.