Two very different consumer groups descend on Aspen in August: the bears, which go foraging in the Dumpsters, and alpha members of the American art world, who go through large quantities of fine wine and contemporary art at the Aspen Art Museum's (AAM) annual artCrush summer benefit.

This year's proceedings, which took place August 5–7, were given particular urgency not just by the economy but by the city's rejection in May of a proposed new location for the museum. In the end, the AAM netted $1 million from the event, down from last year's $1.4 million.

ArtCrush has become a three-day affair in recent years, kicking off with dinner at the home of New York collectors John and Amy Phelan. (She also serves as the event’s chair.) Their mountain abode has plenty of space for the kind of hangings that don't have a prayer of fitting into a Park Avenue elevator, and the installation of John Waters toddler-effigies of Charles Manson and Michael Jackson on the pool table is creepier now than it was last year.

The crowd, as at the local Baldwin Gallery's Thursday auction preview and the museum's Friday dinner, was packed with big-name American collectors from all over, including Maria and Bill Bell (Los Angeles), Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson (Chicago), Paul and Gayle Stoffel (Dallas), and no fewer than four Rubells (Miami). It seemed from a quick survey of the room that this year's event had drawn more dealers — Marianne Boesky and White Cube's Daniela Gareh among them — than usual. In this market, apparently, one pursues one's clients into the hills.

Aspen collector Karen Lord let it slip during cocktails that her daughter, Rachel, is auditioning for Sarah Jessica Parker's new, art-themed Bravo reality-TV series. And AAM director Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson made an announcement between courses: Board president Nancy Magoon would be stepping down in October. She'll be replaced by the board's current vice president, Daniel Holtz, whose spot will be filled by John Phelan.

Magoon, a year-round resident, said she's looking forward to doing more fishing and skiing. "This is a community of type-A personalities. There are no followers, only leaders," she explained at her house the next day, adding that her five-year tenure had nevertheless been a rewarding experience. She and her husband, Bob, were leading a small group of friends through their impressive collection. They'd recently acquired a Nigel Cooke canvas, Night Studio, and their three-minute Kota Ezawa video, The Simpson Verdict, left guests mesmerized.

On Friday night, benefit guests were free to tour the museum's knockout Fred Tomaselli show, which opened August 1. Wine was selling better than art during the cocktail-hour silent auction, although there were some notable exceptions: Mark Titchner's gold, mandala-like Dreaming and Doing (The Age of Happiness) (2009), valued at $15,000, went for $20,000. Another early buyout, Mike Brannon's Co-workers (2008), sold for $12,500.

By a little after 7 p.m., all 25 of the mushroom lawn sculptures Jason Middlebrook had created for the event had been spoken for, and L.A.’s Hammer Museum had used acquisition funds to land Wangechi Mutu's Howl and 10 Harrell Fletcher prints from 2006 of color-photocopied book covers from the Los Angeles Public Library.

Tobias Meyer, on loan from sponsor Sotheby's, presided over the live auction. Promisingly, the first lot, Jim Hodges's Arena (White White) (2006), went for exactly twice its $13,500 estimate. But a postcard-and-paint landscape by William Wegman, valued at $40,000, collected only $26,000, and the bidding wars cooled until philanthropist and self-declared "art neophyte" Nancy Rogers decided to get in on the action. She enthusiastically snapped up two consecutive lots: a commissioned portrait by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin ($46,000) and Raqib Shaw's rhinestone-encrusted Untitled (2009) ($56,000), which she later explained was an anniversary gift for her husband, Mary Kay heir Richard Rogers.

Tomaselli's My Left Hand (2009) was the evening's last and priciest lot; John Phelan secured it for $110,000, pushing the live-auction total up to $376,000. The artist, who'd been officially honored earlier in the evening and toasted at soirées all week, seemed a bit exhausted by it all but was hardly unhappy. There are worse parts of the world in which to celebrate and sell art, Tomaselli confessed, noting, "This place doesn't even have biting insects."