PALM BEACH, Fla.—Variety was the hallmark of the latest incarnation of Art Palm Beach, which ran January 15-19 — not just in the mix of contemporary art, photography, and design that gave the fair its former name of Palm Beach3, but also in the origins, orientations, and installations of the 70 exhibitors. These dealers hail from cities large and small in countries near and far: from Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to Stockholm, Sweden; from Buenos Aires to Bucharest; from Denmark to Dubai. Some spotlight new conceptual works in traditional media, while others accumulate decorative crafts using unconventional materials or hang secondary-market pictures salon-style.

“There’s something for everyone,” remarked Palm Beach gallerist Holden Luntz, who found himself in the company of more photography exhibitors than last year. “I like the idea of bringing in new dealers. There’s a mix of good and marginal, but every fair is going to have that in this economy.” He appreciated the more refined décor, cafés, and exhibition spaces, as well as how “the reconfiguration of the floor made it easier to navigate.” Luntz mounted a rare solo show of fashion hotshot Bruce Weber’s personal series “Gentle Giants” of Newfoundlands and “Bear Pond” of nude models cavorting at his summer residence in the Adirondacks. When ARTINFO visited, the silver gelatin prints, with several sizes available in editions of five, were selling briskly for $7,000 to $12,000.

Luntz balanced this classic portraiture with a project booth of the subjective reality favored by a younger generation and featured in the gallery’s current group exhibition “Myth, Magic and Mystery,” represented here by two artists who pose actors in specially constructed sets, then digitally alter the exposures to create imaginary scenarios. Dianne Blell depicts scenes from the courtship of legendary Hindu lovers Radha and Krishna in intricate composites of up to 50 layers, which took from 2000 to 2007 to complete, for an effect that recalls 17th-century Mogul miniature paintings. They are available in three sizes: the smallest in editions of 10 starting at $3,500, the medium format in editions of 8 starting at $5,500, and the largest (of which two sold as of press time) in editions of 7 from $7,500. In his whimsical “adult fairytales,” Jamie Baldridge “attempts to find ways of ordering and making sense of the surreal chaos of the world,” explains Huntz, who sold half a dozen of the archival pigment photographs, printed by the artist from 2005 to 2008 ($6,500 for the large format and $1,800 for the medium, in editions of seven).

By Sunday afternoon, organizers International Fine Art Exhibitions (IFAE) had already counted 16,000 visitors (a reportedly record attendance for the event), with two days until doors closed on Tuesday. “Today the dealers are demanding that you deliver the people,” said David Lester, who founded the fair with his wife Lee Ann in 1998 but sold it a few years later, only to resume ownership a year ago. “When this place is packed, it gives people an urgency to buy. If not, why make a decision?”

Some collectors were still circling coveted pieces, leading Peter Osborne of London’s Osborne Samuel to conclude, “We won’t know how well we’ve done from the fair until April.” He predicted a showdown between an Italian collector and a New Yorker with a private sculpture garden for the $300,000 grouping of five life-sized figures that Icelandic sculptor Steinunn Thorarinsdottir cast from iron and pierced with glass in 2008. Four of the five editions of Argentinian Graciela Sacco’s enigmatic 2009 video installation of anonymous pedestrians shot from below had already sold at $7,500 each.

Still, Osborne reported that one of those buyers had expressed disappointment at finding fewer of the cutting-edge works they had become accustomed to at previous editions run by DMG World Media. “The Lesters seem to be taking it in a different direction,” observed Osborne, who nonetheless likened the surrounding wares to the kinds of objects he has often seen in the homes of the Palm Beach clientele the fair has helped nurture since its inception. The British dealer is considering a switch to the American International Fine Art Fair that IFAE produces at the same location in February, but said the corresponding emphasis on the gallery’s older inventory “would be a shame, because we like mixing modern and contemporary, as people expect us to do.”