EAST HAMPTON, N.Y.—For its third run in the Hamptons, the Scope art fair has reduced its size and thus, according to director Alexis Hubshman, become “more boutique.” This, he feels, is appropriate to the Scope that, by comparison with the editions in New York, Miami, Basel, Madrid, London, and wherever else they expand to next, is “more sleepy… like a siesta,” but which he maintains is a “summer prize” for dealers who have supported his efforts elsewhere.

Just how much of a prize this year’s fair will be remains to be seen. Spirits were high at last night’s Collector’s First View, despite the fact that — and I’m sorry if this is becoming something of an idée fixe in my Scope reports — business was being conducted in sauna-like conditions, as a lightning strike earlier in the day had shut down the AC. The fair, which runs through the weekend at the East Hampton Studios, features fewer than 40 galleries (less than half the number at this year’s Scope Basel), which affords those in attendance some extra space to breathe (though some make better use of this than others). The fair also offers a mix of Scope old-timers and new faces, as well as a wide range of price points.

Beth McNeill of McNeill Art Group, who has been at all three Scope Hamptons, is a fan of the new layout. She told me that she finds the mood “more relaxed, with a certain ease.” She’s certainly hung her booth to take best advantage of the wider space, with large-scale paintings offset by delightfully quirky sculptures like Jeff Muhs’s Things That Steve Gave Me: Nana’s Minks (2008), a concrete block with a mink stole threaded through it, which is available for $8,000.

China Square, who are first-timers at Scope, and “very excited to be here,” according to director Carrie Clyne, have a lively and eye-catching display, with Shen Jingdong’s brightly colored paintings of smiling toy-like communists, and — the booth’s stand-out piece, in my opinion — Zhong Biao’s diptych Grandma’s Sky (2007), which is being offered for $250,000.

New Orleans’s Red Truck Gallery is getting a lot of attention as the fair’s bad boy exhibitors; during last night’s opening, proprietor Noah Antieau and his pals were seen drinking and playing cards for cigarettes. Their small booth is filled floor to ceiling with voguish, folksy, outsider-y craft objects, which are likely to prove very popular, as well as some harrowing photographs of post-Katrina townscapes by Frank Relle.

Utterly different in every way is the Leehyun Seoul Gallery booth. Maybe three times the size of Red Truck’s, it is sparely hung and staffed by almost embarrassingly reserved young Korean women who, in limited English, will introduce you to the artists they have on display. But they, too, should do great business this weekend. I was particularly taken by Stand In a Line (2006), a multi-panel work by Jin Ah (or Jinah) Sohn in acrylic paint and “reflection powder” (a material that looks like the microscopic glitter found in certain sorts of makeup). The seven panels are offered separately for $12,000 apiece.

At Washington D.C.’s Meat Market Gallery, a wonderfully unsettling C-print triptych by Olof Nordal got a lot of attention. Looking like evidence from some post-apocalyptic natural world, Iceland Specimen Collection — Sleipnir, Cyclops, Janus (2003) is priced at $19,000.

Another likely crowd-pleaser is in Miami gallerist Kevin Bruk’s booth. Fabian Marcaccio’s $ Paintant III (2008) is a hallucination of dirty money, a huge gummy heap of outsize dollar bills available for $58,000. I also liked Linus Coraggio’s untitled welded screen from 2006, on sale for $10,000 at Michael Steinberg Fine Art’s booth.

And my recommendation for the fair’s biggest bargain goes to Rusty Scruby’s deconstructed and woven photographs that warp in and out of two and three dimensions; they are available at Chris Worley’s Pan American Art Projects. Dots (2008), for example, is on offer for $1,800, though it probably will have sold by the time you read this.