NEW YORK—For this year’s PULSE New York, the folks in charge decided to energize the fair with a series of so-called “large-scale installations and sculptures.” As it turns out, the category — which comprises 14 works, selected by the fair organizers from over 50 proposals submitted by various exhibitors — is something of a nebulous construction. In theory (and on the fair map), these projects clearly mark their territory among the maze of booths, but in practice, it isn’t so easy to figure out which large-scale artworks technically belong in the elite domain.

Nonetheless, wandering around the fair, the large-scale pieces serve as a refreshing aesthetic complement to the typically drab tent full of booths in a garage at Pier 40. The works are, of course, for sale. But set up away from their galleries’ booths, they acquire a little artistic breathing room and a little more status than the average work, drawing attention away from sales, celebrity sightings, and scandals — and toward the art itself.

Among the highlights is Jennifer Burkley Vasher’s fantastic Tylenol Room (Entitlement, The Past is Never Dead and Buried) (2006), a space in which a white daybed (called a “fainting couch” by the artist) is surrounded by what look like, from far away, delicately beaded curtains. Move in, and you realize that the white beads are actually aspirins, looped onto quilting thread. The intense whiteness of the piece — white pills, thread, and couch — evokes the sterility of a hospital, and the work’s stillness conjures up an anticipatory drama, as if the scene is waiting patiently for someone to enter and promptly fall ill. Vivette Hunt, director of the Richard Levy Gallery, told me that they have been waiting for the “right event” to show the artist’s work. Apparently PULSE was the spot, as another of the artist’s pill pieces, I Had Trouble Getting to Solla Sollew (where they never have troubles, at least very few) (2008) was the gallery’s first sale of the fair.

Another installation not to be missed, though you couldn’t miss it if you tried, is Mark Shetabi’s Model (2007), comprised of two models of a empty parking lot, which are identical except that one is 34 inches long, and the other 34 feet long. The two dioramas complement each other nicely, one in a Plexiglas display case and the other taking up the remainder of the room. Looking from the small to the large, I couldn’t help but begin to wonder if I wasn’t inside a gigantic Plexiglas case myself, along with the huge model, which as of this writing is still available from Jeff Bailey Gallery for $120,000 (a price that I doubt includes transportation fees).

Probably the most gimmicky of all, but also the most entertaining, is Mike Latham and Arts Corporation’s Kiosk (2008). The work is a glass booth centering on the Arts Corporation’s new “invention,” the t.oaster (which despite the period is simply a t.ransparent toaster). It also boasts some toast, two video screens playing an infomercial that advertises the t.oaster, a limited warranty, and three women dressed in short white dresses coyly reminiscent of lab coats.

As one of the women stopped me to explain the simultaneous functionality and fashionability of the invention, the infomercial prodded, “Tired of plain white bread?” It seems like PULSE is echoing the question, offering their installations as the toast of the art world’s white bread. I’m not sure the pieces they’ve come up with are anything entirely new, but then again, neither is a transparent toaster.