There seemed to be two questions on everyone’s mind at Art Chicago this weekend: “What’s the future of Art Chicago?” and “Will the slumping economy affect art sales?”

By all early indications, Art Chicago’s reputation as an important international contemporary art fair was well on its way to being restored following its near demise and rescue by Merchandise Mart Properties Inc. in 2006. MMPI spent approximately $6 million to renovate its 12th floor as a permanent home for the show and countless dollars on heavy promotion in preparation for this year's fair; leading cultural institutions partnered to create the umbrella Artropolis, a citywide, multi-venue celebration of the arts; major Chicago collectors and patrons including Lewis and Susan Manilow, Larry and Marilyn Fields, and Paul and Dorie Sternberg opened their homes and private collections to participating dealers; and as of press time, attendance at the 180-booth fair was estimated at 50,000, up from last year’s 42,000.

Indeed, the preview party Thursday night was the place to be. Local collectors, including hotelier Helmut Horn, major Art Institute of Chicago benefactors Richard and Ellen Sandor, and Museum of Contemporary Art board chairperson Helen Zell, put in appearances. So did celebrities (although regular attendee Elton John didn’t show up until Saturday); museum groups from as far away as Beijing; a cross-section of people from Chicago’s cultural scene; interior designers with clients in tow; and artists, curators, art lovers and, of course, the partygoers who never miss the hottest ticket in town.

“Tonight has the same buzz and energy and has attracted the kind of people I used to see in the earlier days at Art Chicago,” said attendee David Williams, the chief creative officer at the investment research company Morningstar and an art collector himself.

Yet despite the nearly universal praise from both exhibitors and attendees for how professionally MMPI handled the show and its swarms of viewers, dealers reported sales that started slow and remained disappointingly sluggish-to-fair. “It wasn’t a land rush to buy when the doors opened,” says Paul Morris, MMPI’s vice president of art shows and events, “but in many ways this is a new show and it is not yet on the cultural calendar of the Russians and Europeans the way the Armory and Basel shows are.”

First-time exhibitor Veronika Jeric-Binder of Munich’s Galerie Andreas Binder reported that people were “looking but not buying”; Vicki Harris, the director of New York’s Laurence Miller Gallery, said she thinks the troubled U.S. economy has started to trickle into people’s psychology. Harris also speculated, “There simply may be too many art fairs now spaced too closely together — all attracting the same potential buyers.”

For his part, Paul Gray, director of Chicago's Richard Gray Gallery and a member of Art Chicago’s selection committee, said he thought that “having five fairs under one roof” — including the invitational exhibition of emerging art NEXT; the Merchandise Mart International Antiques Fair; the Artist Project, an independent artist exhibition; and the Intuit Show of Folk and Outsider Art — was a problem because the offerings were too diverse, diluting Art Chicago’s focus.

Overall, blue-chip, established artists tended to sell best at Art Chicago. Frankfurt’s Die Galerie reported more than $1 million in sales between two pieces — Max Ernsts 1957 oil La Regle du Jeu and Andre Massons 1926 oil La Chambre. The ubiquitous large-format photographs also did well: Desert Prada, Texas by Burk Uzzle sold for $30,000 at Laurence Miller Gallerys booth, while Vic Munizs WWW (World Map) (Pictures of Junk) digital C-print sold for $80,000 at New York’s Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

Many dealers, especially those from New York, reported selling mostly to established clients. Gray, however, sold a Jaume Plensa sculpture, Self Portrait as H.B. III (2006) to first-time buyers from Tulsa, Oklahoma, for $120,000.

If the atmosphere at Art Chicago was serious and a tad apprehensive, the scene five floors below at NEXT was a different story. There people were having fun, and not just because the main cafe was tricked out like a dive bar, massages were being offered in the dealers lounge, and shoeshines were available for $5. But also because the art on display in its 160 more cutting-edge booths was provocative, interactive, loud, experimental — and selling well. Many of the artists were on hand to talk about their work, and by Sunday some of the booths had sold out completely.

One of the most enthusiastic collectors at the show was Paige West of the private West Collection of Philadelphia, who was on hand to exhibit works from the collection in a curated section at NEXT and to announce the new $125,000 West Prize for international emerging artists. West reportedly spent a total of $350,000 at the fair, and she was also one of two collectors who put a hold on what was perhaps the most popular piece on the floor: The Slow Inevitable Death of American Muscle, a sculptural installation showing two automobiles engaged in a real-life, controlled head-on collision by Brooklyn-based artist Jonathan Schipper of Pierogi Gallery. In response to the interest, Schipper says he is considering doing an edition of three, priced at $100,000 each. No word yet on who’ll be taking home the first one.

Charlotte Perman from London’s Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, which sold West a Laura Ford sculpture for $20,000, had nothing but praise for NEXT. “We’ve tapped into a new market and a new group of collectors — we’re thrilled with that, as well as with the fantastic creativity I’m seeing here in Chicago.”