The 29th edition of Art Brussels opened on Thursday, featuring 170 international galleries, winnowed down from the 430 that applied to participate. Organizers anticipated that 30,000 visitors would pass through by the end of the weekend. Art Brussels is an excellent fair both in form and content, with exhibitors split between two halls, one focusing on young and emerging galleries, the other on more established spaces. The fair's attention to detail is most evident in the artist projects, new for 2011, curated by Mousse magazine. They include a collector's tote bag by Rob Pruitt (printed with instructions on how to convert it into a woman's top), as well as a fuzzed out, ambient soundtrack by Liam Gillick that loops in the bathrooms and dining areas. Mousse also tapped Matthew Brannon to develop a system of icons that appear on the exhibitor's map, symbolically noting each one a gallerist's responses to several key questions: Marx of Freud? Duchamp or Picasso? Vegetarian or carnivore? (Personal favorite: The icon for "Did you attend a fine art program of any university?" is a dollar bill, on fire.)

There is a wealth of excellent work on display. In the hall dedicated to younger galleries, Los Angeles's M+B has brought "Tiffany" (2009), by the hotter-by-the-minute Alex Prager; it features a hipster girl in a library sporting fogged-up glasses and hard nipples. They also featured a series of four silkscreens by Matthew Brandt, priced at $4,500 each: mountain scenes rendered in such unconventional mediums as Chinese BBQ sauce, Cheeze Whiz, vanilla frosting, and mint jelly. New York's Eleven Rivington dedicated most of their real estate to large works by Michael Delucia, geometric Minimalism rendered by gouging plywood and applying house paint. The pieces, priced between €8,000 ($11,900) and €16,000 ($23,800), mixed the clean lines of squares and rectangles with the overall degradation and violence of Delucia's process. (The gallery also featured '70s and contemporary pieces by David Hammons, as well as small drawings and one-offs by the suddenly overvalued Jacob Kassay, priced at €4,250, or $6,300, each.)

American, especially New York-based, artists are a strong force at the fair. Antwerp's Office Baroque Gallery showcases pieces by Leigh Ledare, Matthew Brannon, and David Rhodes. Ledare's "Untitled (Fucker)," a photo in an edition of five from the infamous series that focused on his relationship with his mother, has an asking price of $5,000, as does the similarly editioned "Mom Tied To Catch 22." Brannon's unique letterpress prints, both about navigating the world of the wealthy, are priced at $10,000 each. Amsterdam's Grimm Gallery is showcasing Brooklyn-based artists: Adam Helms, Matthew Day Jackson, Dave McDermott, Nick van Woert, and Larry Bamburg. The booth had already sold Jackson's piece, "August 9, 1945 (Nagasaki)," for around $200,000. Both van Woert sculptures sold in the range of $25-30,000, as did the three McDermott paintings (around $8,500) and collages (around $1,500.) Jorg Grimm said there was also serious interest in a large light box by Adam Helms, "Earthworks/the ecstatic experience" (2010), in an edition of three, being offered for around $30,000.

View Slideshow: Business At Art Brussels Is a "Slow Burn," As Thoughtful Connoisseurs Turn Out for Edgy Art

The Iranian artist Rokni Haerizadeh was a focus at the booth for Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde. His series of nine works — drawn on and altered AP-style photographs of protests and police actions, rendering the participants as pigs, donkeys, or giraffes — had an asking price of €18,000 ($26,700) for the set. Another artist from a politically contentious country, Cuban-based Adonis Flores, had several excellent pieces at the booth for Havana's Habana Gallery, including an enormous sculpture, priced at €16,000 ($23,800), of a figure sewn, body bag-style, into an enormous black leather boot.

Brussels-based NOMAD Gallery dedicated its booth's back wall to a large tapestry piece with a hypnotic vertical pattern, "Last Red" (2007), by Javier Fernandez. The artist himself was in attendance and explained the labor-intensive, manual weaving process that each piece requires — he works without assistants. A work such as this one, at ten square meters, would take nearly a year to complete. (Fernandez's gallerist said that the artist's pieces, oddly enough, are priced according to their size in square meters; at €5,500-6,000, or $8,100-8,900, per square meter, "Last Red" would sell for something like $81,700-89,200).

Berlin's Peres Projects brought paintings and drawings by Joe Bradley, a small gum-based painting by Dan Colen, two bath towel-based Paul Lee sculptures, and new works from Kirstine Roepstorff: mirrored plinths topped by concrete slabs and angled shards of colored glass. And at the booth for Hoert Bekaert Gallery there was a solo show by the sculptor Hannes Vanseveren, who won the fair's Belgacom Prize for the best solo presentation with his inventive forms, with wood or marble finishings. His melting masses, some drooping down the walls, resembling nonfunctioning furniture.

Downstairs, in the hall dedicated to more established galleries, Almine Rech Gallery has a solo booth for the Belgacom First Runner-up, Patrick Hill. The artist's wall pieces feature short lengths of wood (stained turqoise, black, pink, orange, or yellow) placed over pages cut from pornographic magazines. Hill's vibrant choice of color, drawn from a very childlike palette,contrasts with the photographic content, and the wood acts as a physical barrier or censor obscuring the erotic details. There are also two larger floor sculptures, of stained wood, rope, and glass, that resemble obscure toys or brain puzzles.

At Brussels' Xavier Hufkens, works by Sterling Ruby and Erwin Wurm were on display, as well as a seascape painting, "TEMPETE, Mer du Nord etude no.2" (2011), by Thierry de Cordier that was priced at €150-200,000 ($222,900-297,200). The gallery's Simon Devolder calls de Cordier one of the "best kept secrets in Belgium," a notoriously unprolific painter and "a bit of a recluse" whose works sell quickly as a result. This piece was sold within the fair's first half hour for a price in the $150-200,000 range, though Devolder notes that the gallery "could've sold it ten times" due to the interest level. Hufkens's booth also featured "Mask/Helmet II" by Thomas Houseago, in an edition of 3 with 2 artist proofs, with an asking price of $120,000.

London's Stuart Shave / Modern Art featured Ricky Swallow (the solo focus of their booth at The Independent fair this March in New York), plus work by Paul Lee and Barnaby Furnas. The gallery was reluctant to name specific prices, though they noted a sale of a tambourine-based sculpture by Lee (whose work starts at around $9,000), a painting of a tattooed Jesus by Furnas (whose smaller pieces start at $75,000), and a unique Swallow sculpture (similar pieces range from $8-$20,000).

Paris' Galerie Daniel Templon is featuring a number of works, but standouts include a large gouache on paper by Daniel Arsham ($27,000 asking price) and a large tie-dye painting by Piotr Uklanski, "Untitled (Reefer's Ambush)" (2010), similar to the pieces he showed with Gagosian earlier this year. That work has a hold on it, a representative said, and is being sold for $140,000.

Simon Lee Gallery of London features a roster of important names, including Bernard Frize, George Condo, Sherrie Levine, and Christopher Wool. A large wall piece by Larry Clark, "I Want A Baby Before U Die" — an assortment of photos, newspaper clippings, tickets, buttons, and other ephemera — had an asking price of $185,000. Maureen Paley, also of London, has what the gallerist calls "very rare" vintage prints by David Salle from 1985 and '86, from an edition of six plus two artist proofs. Paley is selling artist proofs of the photos, which she compares to studies for larger paintings, for $6,500.

Brussels' Zeno X gallery is participating in their hometown fair for the first time this year. When asked why they had chosen to sit it out until now, director Frank Demaegd explained that other international fairs — Basel, the Armory, Frieze — demanded top-class work as well. Still, Zeno X managed to bring a handful of excellent pieces to Art Brussels, including a 2010 work by Marlene Dumas, "Like Sadam," which had yet to sell. (The asking price is €200,000). Meanwhile, the gallery had been making other sales: two works by Dutch abstract painter Kees Goudzwaard, for €6,500 ($9,700) and €16,000 ($23,800); a Mark Manders sculpture, for €70,000 ($104,000); a Michael Borremans painting, "Girl With Duck," for €40,000 ($59,400).

London- and Milan-based Massimo de Carlo gallery focused on a handful of bold-faced New York names: Rob Pruitt, Dan Colen, and Nate Lowman. The latter was represented by a few of his gas pump exteriors; Lowman will typically exhibit a series of actual pump exteriors, sourced on the Internet, along with a photo-realist painting of the same. When I interviewed Lowman for the Studio Check feature in the May issue of Modern Painters, he said that the pump exteriors were not meant to be sold on their own. That evidently isn't stopping Massimo de Carlo, who are offering three of the rusted, vintage shells, sold separately, with an asking price of $20,000 each.

New York's Perry Rubenstein gallery took part in Art Brussels once before, in 2008, and this year, its booth had a focus on Robin Rhode. Rubenstein himself was upbeat about the fair's prospects and the attention being paid to Rhode; he'd been having "endless discussions" about the artist's unique practice with a very "serious, engaged, contemplative audience." The pieces, in editions of six, sell for between $55,000-$100,000; one larger work, "Brick Face" (2008), went to a well-known (but anonymous) Belgian collector for a price at the upper end of that spectrum, $95,000. Rubenstein noted, as did many other dealers, that Art Brussels is a different sort of fair in terms of the collectors' habits; many will often mull over a purchase after several visits to a booth, returning later in the weekend to seal a deal.

"Unlike Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Brussels is a slow burn," Rubenstein says. "The collectors that attend are true connoisseurs — they look at work many times and engaged in informed dialogue before acquiring. We sold today and we anticipate selling works right through the last day."