The bittersweet lament that permeated yesterday’s Art Basel VIP preview — “Where have all the Americans gone?” — continued on opening day.

Though strangely, the absence has made itself felt not in the number of transactions, but rather as a shift in geographic influence. Not that all dealers are that concerned. As one put it, “Not to sound really mercenary, but I don’t care whether the Americans buy the work or not.”

Marc Glimcher, president of New York’s PaceWildenstein, put it even more bluntly: “We can’t take the time to figure out what’s going on in the art market,” he said, “because we’re too busy counting our money.”

Glimcher ticked off a roster of six-figure sales in less than 24 hours, citing two works apiece by new gallery artists, Zhang Huan and Zhang Xiaogang, including Zhang Xiaogang’s Boy and TV (2005) and Zhang Huan’s Memory Door series (Map 2008), at prices between $200,000 and $700,000. The gallery also sold Dialogue (2007), a large abstraction by the storied 72-year-old Korean artist Lee Ufan, priced “in the $300–500,000 range,” and a number of Sol LeWitt geometric-patterned gouaches recently released by the artist’s estate, at prices ranging from $50,000 to $150,000.

Demand for Chinese art appeared high overall. A rather saccharine-styled figurative work by TianBing Li, Bataille derriere la table #2 (Battle behind the table #2) (2008), sold for $195,000 at L&M Arts. And at New York's Acquavella, new gallery artist Zeng Fanzhis oil-on-canvas Portrait 08-2-1 (2008) went for $1–1.5 million.

Acquavella also had one of the fair’s bigger-ticket sales: the heavily impastoed Lucian Freud painting Girl in Attic Doorway (1994–95), which went for a sum approaching the asking price of $12 million. Rumor had it that Russian multi-billionaire Roman Abramovich had had his eyes on the painting, following his recent acquisition of Freud’s Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (1995) at Christie’s New York last month for a record-shattering $33,641,000. Multiple spottings of the casually dressed Russian metals magnate and his beautiful companion, Dasha Zhukova, at the main fair spurred the unconfirmed speculation, but dealer Nick Acquavella would say only, “It went to a European buyer.”

Meanwhile, a much smaller, page-sized Freud of a cross-legged nude, Resting on the Green Chair II (2000) sold to an American buyer (!) for $1.8 million.

“We’ve seen good business,” said Acquavella, “excellent clients and it’s going strong. People are saying ‘less Americans,’ but what does that mean?” Apparently not much.

Buttonholed in the Basquiat, Giacometti, and Picassofilled stand of New York’s Jan Krugier, London private dealer Ivor Braka admitted he had just bought a major Damien Hirst sculpture, But how do you really feel (1996), comprised of six stainless-steel and glass-encased plastic skeletons, from Jay Jopling of London’s White Cube. Braka didn’t want to divulge the price, believed to be in the $4 million range, because, as he says, “I don’t know yet what I’m going to do with it. Usually I hold onto things for a long time.”

Braka also expressed surprise that such good works were still available on the second day. He said he had missed the action during the preview, claiming “I spent most of my time at Chez Donati, having lunch and watching the Rhine.”

That relaxed and casual style, as if there was plenty of time to make deals, seemed to characterize the mood in the halls, but not everyone was relaxing. The folks at London/Zurich’s Hauser & Wirth spent most of Tuesday night re-hanging their substantial stand, which boasts a Belgian oak floor and a specially fitted ceiling, all of it designed by architect Tom Postma.

The gallery had sold Berlinde de Bruyckeres wax, epoxy, wood, and metal figurative sculpture Pieta from 2008 for €190,000, and all three versions of Paul McCarthys wacky and almost wonderful Captain Ball Sack (2001–08), executed in cast foam core, for $1.8 million apiece.

Hauser & Wirth also sold a four-meter-wide untitled Guillermo Kuitca painting from 2007 for $450,000 and a fresh-from-the-studio Subodh Gupta triptych in oil and enamel, Still, Steal, Steel #4, measuring roughly 66 by 269 inches, for €650,000.

But all of the fair’s action wasn’t reserved for contemporary wares; two Pablo Picasso paintings from the 1960s sold at Madrid’s Elvira González gallery. Buste de Jeune Garcon and Nu Allonge et buste et home, both from 1964, sold to European clients for approximately €1 million and $2.5 million, respectively.

“I think there are sales,” said dealer Fernando Gonzalez, “But it’s not like last year.”

New York’s Richard Feigen would probably agree. Though much talked about and admired, a major and luscious 60-by-48-inch Willem de Kooning painting, Woman, from circa 1969–70 and priced at $15 million, was still available at the veteran dealer’s booth on opening day, much to his surprise. “Dealers have been making low-ball offers at half the asking price,” he said, “so they can make a big profit, but I doubt the owner is interested at that level.”

Perhaps Feigen’s somewhat out-of-the-way location, off the more heavily trafficked main drags of the blue-chip stands, had something to do with it. In any event, the painting ranks high in eye-candy stature.

Fellow New Yorker Christophe van de Weghe, however, fell more in the PaceWildenstein and Acquavella camp.

“I sold everything to the Europeans,” said the surprised dealer, including a life-size Duane Hanson Cowboy in bronze and polychromed with oil, mixed media, and accessories from 1984, for $550,000 — a work that had not sold when the gallery offered it at Art Basel Miami Beach in December.  

Van de Weghe also sold Roy Lichtensteins Imperfect Sculpture (1995), the last in an edition of six in stained cast iron and painted steel plates for $650,000, and, for $5.5 million, a small but glowing untitled Mark Rothko from 1968 in acrylic on paper and mounted on panel. And the superb late Basquiat The Dingoes That Park Their Brains with Their Gum (1988), in acrylic and oil stick, found a European buyer at $5.3 million.

The level of action, especially given the somewhat lower turnout, bodes well for next year. Imagine what could happen if the Americans decide to come back and give the Europeans a run for their money.

Judd Tully is Editor at Large of Art+Auction.