We Love You,Louise Bourgeois

Lisa Spellman has sold many artworks at London's Frieze Art Fair over four years, including Doug Aitken's mixed-media pieces and Karen Kilimnik's figurative paintings.

But that's not stopping the owner of 303 Gallery in New York's Chelsea district from skipping Frieze this week in favor of the Foire Internationale d'Art Contemporain (FIAC), a contemporary-art fair held under a soaring glass dome of the Grand Palais and in the Louvre's courtyard in Paris from Oct. 23 to 26.

Spellman, like some other New York dealers, said she is opting for FIAC because she believes the Paris fair is attracting a wider array of European collectors and museum curators than other contemporary-art fairs, thus increasing her chances of boosting business during the global financial crisis.

``Between Miami Basel, New York's Armory Show and Frieze you are not getting widely different audiences,'' Spellman said. ``If I am doing four fairs a year, I want each to be unique. I want to develop new relationships.''

303 Gallery is one of 19 New York galleries at FIAC, the same as last year. The number of New York galleries at Frieze, which is now in its sixth year of selling cutting-edge contemporary art, has dropped to 22 from 26 in 2007.

This year's edition of Frieze will feature 152 galleries from 27 countries, offering new work by more than 1,000 contemporary artists.

More Museums

FIAC, which turns 35 this year, will include 189 galleries from 22 countries and is popular with French, Belgian and Middle Eastern collectors, according to dealers. This year, trustees and executives from 42 museums from such diverse parts of the globe as the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Russia and Mexico will visit the fair, according to its creative director Jennifer Flay.

``FIAC is known to be a place where major transactions take place,'' Flay said. Ninety-seven percent of FIAC participants apply again, she said, a sign of the fair's growing success.

Matthew Slotover, co-director of Frieze, said in a telephone interview that his fair receives more applications from U.S. galleries than are accepted.

``What we are trying to do each year is choose the best galleries regardless of where they are from,'' Slotover said. ``We don't have quotas from different countries and different cities. Frieze is a truly international fair.''

New Collectors

Last year at FIAC, New York art dealer Christoph Van de Weghe sold a $2.3 million canvas by Jean-Michel Basquiat, a $600,000 butterfly painting by Damien Hirst and a $165,000 gouache by Joan Miro.

``There was a lot of great energy,'' said Van de Weghe, who specializes in the resale of works by 20th-century masters. ``I am coming back.''

Stefania Bortolami of the Bortolami Gallery in New York said she sold everything in her FIAC booth in 2007, ``and all the collectors we met we didn't know before.'' One sold piece was a $500,000 painting by Daniel Buren, whose solo show opens at Paris's Musee Picasso on Oct. 24.

Lombard-Freid Projects, which will participate in FIAC for the first time, hopes to connect its international artists with French curators.

``We are looking to creatively expand our base,'' said Lea Freid, a partner in the gallery. ``The institutions are critical for that. And in Europe the institutions are not as dependent on the financial means of their trustees.''

Cheaper Alternative

For Perry Rubenstein, another new FIAC exhibitor, the fair is a less expensive alternative to Frieze.

``The British currency has become punitive,'' he said. ``Frieze would have been an extremely expensive endeavor and I wasn't sure of success.''

Given the turmoil in the financial markets, there's no guarantee FIAC itself will be a success.

``We hope that since the stock market is so bad people will decide to put money in art,'' said Bortolami. ``If that doesn't happen, there will be a very big shrinkage in the art market.''