There was a relaxed and upbeat vibe as the 15th edition of Art-Athina kicked off the preview evening, on May 21 (the fair ran through May 24), in its sunny new digs at Faliro Pavilion, a stadium used for the 2004 Olympics, with a view of the Piraeus port and all of its yachts, not to mention a World War II destroyer. Visitors were greeted at the entrance by the voice of Greek sculptor Theodoros reciting theoretical musings (which got a bit frenetic toward the end, when Theodoros repeated, “Fast and effective, fast and effective…”).

And with a new director, Alexandros J. Stanas, the fair felt brand new and efficiently organized, as does the city of Athens since it got spruced up for the games. Apparently the installment of a new regime also served to erase less than happy memories from Art-Athina’s past, including last year’s last-minute threat of cancellation and the 2007 arrest of the director over the display of an obscene video.

The small stadium invited a transparent, easy-to-navigate layout with an overview from the circular second-floor gallery, which held the exhibition “10 Aspects of Hellenic Photography,” as well as a café and lounge. A glance down to the grid of white boxes — holding 58 exhibitors from 12 countries, more than half of them Greek — was enough to take in the fair’s breakdown: a predominance of painting and photography, very little video, and virtually no installations. The consensus on the floor was that this fair is the perfect platform for young collectors who want to discover new and emerging artists at medium-range prices.

Art Rotterdam director Fons Hof noted that although the Rotterdam fair is about the same size, it has an edgier, more international profile than Art-Athina, which focuses more on the local market. An exchange program with Art Rotterdam drew a couple of Dutch collectors, including Wilfried and Yannicke Cooreman-De Smedt, who said he was looking for Greek artists informed by international experience. He and his wife purchased work by Irene Efstathiou, who, they were pleasantly surprised to discover later, had been nominated for the DESTE Prize, sponsored by Greek collector Dakis Joannous eponymous center for contemporary art.

On opening night there was not the frenzied atmosphere of many international fairs, due in large part, perhaps, to the more laid-back buying style of Greek collectors. Gallerist Mirta Demare, an Art-Athina veteran from Rotterdam, observed, “My first time [at Art-Athina] I was sitting here in the morning and wondering why I came. The Greeks come late at night to look around, and then on Sunday, two hours before closing, they buy like crazy.”

Many exhibitors said there did not seem to be many Greek collectors around at all on opening night. Sofia Vamiali, of the local gallery Vamiali’s, said, “This is a slow fair; not everything happens the first day. However, last year the opening was much busier.” She attributed the slower pace to the fact that it was name day for both Constantine and Helena, “the names of half the population of Greece.” She did manage, however, to sell a small Jonathan Monk photograph (€3,000 [$4,180]) to the three collectors behind the nonprofit exhibition space Associazione Barriera in Turin.

By Friday, the first full day of the fair, first-time local exhibitor (and TEFAF regular) Mihalarias Art, which carries established Greek artists, had already sold works by Chryssa, Pavlos, and Takis — all so famous (in Greece anyway) that they use only their first names — in the range of €50,000–100,000. The director said she had seen big collectors Ion Vorres and Christos Moschandreou surveying the scene on opening night — and the famously discreet Joannou was spotted on Friday morning buying a video for a few thousand euros — but added that there seemed to be more “buyers,” as she called them.

Athens gallery the Breeder — which exhibits regularly at Frieze, Art Basel Miami Beach, and Basel’s Liste — did not seem to have a problem with the reported scarcity of early birds either. George Vamvakidis, one of the gallery’s two partners, said they adapt to the local market by bringing small to medium works. By the second day, the gallery had sold nearly all of the several small paintings by Romanian duo Gert and Uwe Tobias that it had brought. And all three of the paintings it had on hand by young Greek artist Stelios Faitakis, visibly inspired by the historic Byzantine tradition, had gone to Greek collectors, for between €5,000 and €20,000.

Vamvakdis said he was not worried about the large, untitled woodcut (measuring about six feet square) by the Tobias brothers that was still up for grabs at €25,000, because there had been lots of interest. He also noted, “It is customary that on Sunday, just before the fair closes, the Greeks come in with trucks to buy last-minute bargains.”

Art-Athina International Honorary Board member Paolo Colombo, whose beautifully curated exhibition “In Praise of Shadows” opened at the Benaki Museum over the weekend, was the impetus behind the flock of Italian collectors in the VIP program, as well as new exhibitors Galleria Lorcan O’Neill and Valentina Bonomo, of Rome, and Project Gentili, of Prato, in Tuscany. Bonomo said that within two minutes of opening at the preview she sold a gorgeous painterly photograph by Irene Kung, Olive Tree (2008), for €1,800. Among her other offerings were portraits and a video by Julian Opie, who did well for her at Bologna’s Arte Fiera earlier this year.

Galleria Lorcan O’Neill Director Laura Chiari said that although Art-Athina was not as busy as its Italian counterparts Artissima and MiArt, its younger artists Pietro Ruffo and Simon Popper — whose works were priced below €5,000 — did well. She speculated that the serious Greek collectors don’t look for expensive works by famous artists at the fair, a notion that was seconded by Helena Papadopoulos, of Berlin’s Nice & Fit, who then added, “But there are lots of young collectors in Athens.” Young Turkish collector Ari Mesulam was tempted by one of the cutout maps from Ruffo’s “Isaiah Berlin” series at Lorcan O’Neill, but concluded that their “archival value is too limited.” He bought only a small painting by the Tobias brothers from the Breeder.

There was a lot of buzz around the Kalfayan Galleries, based in Athens and Thessaloniki. Director Yuli Karatsiki said, “The show was surprisingly good for us. We placed three works of Antonis Donef with major Italian collectors, and one big piece was purchased by an important Greek collector. We also sold a piece from the ‘Unfinished’ series of Hrair Sarkissian to an Italian collector and a piece from the ‘C’ series by Tarek Al-Ghoussein.”

Roman collector Francesca Pinto Bonomo (cousin to Valentina Bonomo) said the fair gave her the impression of being a bit closer to the East, which she found exciting. Indeed, as attention focuses more and more toward Asia and the Middle East, Athens looks poised to become a vibrant Mediterranean hub with an Eastern flavor, a link to newly happening centers like Cairo, Dubai, and Istanbul. Serin Topcudere, of the latter’s Dirimart gallery, who brought an all-Turkish roster, seemed happy with the fair, comparing it to his experience at Art Dubai. Late in the fair, Roman collectors Ines and Giuliano Musumeci Greco, who purchased a pair of small Tobias brother paintings from the Breeder, were still deliberating over videos by Egyptian artist Wael Shawky (at Project Gentili) and Lebanon’s Ziad Antar (at Istanbul’s Rodeo gallery).

The fair's regional feeling was part of its attraction as a place to come and discover relatively unknown — at least abroad — Greek artists, who have retained relatively exotic status in these times of increasingly pervasive globalization. But that unfamiliarity may also be a hindrance — according to Italy-based architect Nathalie Grenon, “We don’t know much about Greek artists or their tradition, so we hesitated to buy something from them.” She said the VIP visit to the Emfietzoglou Collection, a museum of modern and contemporary Greek art, on Saturday helped to remedy that.

Nevertheless, Athens is on the verge of being swept up by international art-market forces, signaled by the rumor that Larry Gagosian, who already has an office in the city, will soon open an exhibition space here. And with the opening of the new Acropolis Museum next month, there is hope that the British will find it a worthy enough home to bring the Elgin Marbles back to — and that international art-loving tourists will follow. In any case, Art-Athina seems like a good, realistic model for what all fairs should be — fair game, in the birthplace of the biggest international games of all.