NEW YORK—The VIP preview of the Armory Show's contemporary-art-focused Pier 94 fair found collectors and dealers in ebullient spirits, with sales — some boosted by the new Whitney Biennial — having a strong start out of the gate, and a celebrity-studded crowd eagerly touring from booth to booth. But while talk hovered around the subject of the long hoped-for market recovery, a more interesting development was the proliferation of strong, curated booths that eschewed the traditional art-fair approach of glitz and glam for a sustained look at a single artist's work.

Solo artist booths were everywhere you looked. Armory Show veteran David Zwirner had his booth elegantly installed with a series of photographs by Philip-Lorca diCorcia, with the centerpiece being a series of unique Polaroids that wrapped around the space. "When the market is slower, it gives you time to reassess," he said. "You can get into a rut with art fairs, and they can be great venues if you think about them intelligently. We want to do something exciting with fairs." But the time of retrenchment and focusing on quality simply because sales were low seems to be over, according to the dealer, who said the mood at the fair "is like night and day", compared to a year ago. "People are looking and are excited that they can buy art," he said. By mid-afternoon he had already parted with 25 of the small Polaroids, which are priced at $4,000 apiece.

Another head-turning offering that wouldn't have looked amiss in a museum project room was PaceWildenstein's booth devoted to New York-based artist Tony Feher. Enclosed within a minimalistic space with black-painted walls, it consisted of three tables arrayed with colorful detritus — plastic bottles half filled with colored water, wooden cast-offs studded with brightly-hued pins, crumpled cans, a pot of growing grass — in a way that appealingly resembled low-rent curiosity cabinets. The assemblages, priced at $150,000, would be bold choices for a collector, showing a side of Feher's work that many may not be familiar with.

San Juan and New York-based collector Alberto de la Cruz who was making the rounds of the fair with fellow Puerto Rican collector Pepe Alvarez, was a fan of the solo booths. "In the old days dealers used to just pack their booths with work by a lot of different artists," he said. "Now they're using them as an extension of the gallery. It's much better that way."

Many, but not all, of the single-artists booths were produced by New York galleries. Paul Kasmin, who had a solo show of paintings by James Nares, has embraced the strategy at the Armory for the past three years. "It makes great sense, I have to say, because I already have a gallery in New York," he said. "When I do fairs out of town I tend to do something more representative of the gallery as a whole." The approach seemed to be working this year. Of the works on offer, ranging from $85,000 to $175,000 for the biggest, taxi-cab-length, canvas, one sold for $95,000 and two for $85,000. Said Kasmin: "The bigger one is on reserve — they're measuring their walls."

Nares, who was on hand at the booth, said he was pleased with the way his work was displayed. "The only way to do an art fair is to take a close look at what catches your eye, to give it a sustained look," he said. "I think people are quite thankful to see one booth that is a little bit more all of a piece."

Other New York galleries with solo booths were Nicole Klagsbrun, which held had a show of all-yellow work by Adam McEwen — including a yellow Caster Semenaya obit, a yellow swastika, and two yellowed chewing gum rorschach pieces — displayed above buzzingly-bright yellow carpet; Canada, which showed work by the hard-edge psychedelic painter Xylor Jane; Elizabeth Dee, who produced a tight show of work by Josephine Meckseper, including a large-scale installation that coyly referenced her video in the current Whitney Biennial; Orchard Street's Rachel Uffner, who showed Hillary Harnischfeger; and Museum 52, showing David Brooks.