The consensus among the 61,000- odd dealers, collectors, museum curators, media and art lovers who descended on the Swiss town of Basel for the 40th edition of the annual Art Basel fair on June 10-14 is that the art market is surprisingly healthy despite a global economic recession.

Regarded as the world's premiere trade show for modern and contemporary art, Art Basel was facing its first test since the September 2008 collapse of American bank Lehman Brothers sent the financial world into a tailspin and had a corresponding effect on the art market, which had seen unprecedented growth throughout the past decade. A robust total of 309 international participants suggested that, despite the substantial costs of booth fees and shipping, dealers are still eager to have a presence at Art Basel.

Tokyo galleries Taka Ishii, Tomio Koyama, Koyanagi, ShugoArts and SCAI the Bathhouse all returned from last year's edition. Gallery Koyanagi's Atsuko Koyanagi was beaming during the June 9 fair preview, having sold the majority of works by minimalist photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto at prices ranging from $60,000 to $120,000.

"Artists with strong track records are doing well," Koyanagi told The Japan Times. "Collectors who understand value are buying."

Koyanagi said that the period from October 2008 to March 2009 was difficult for selling art but that Art Basel had coincided with an uptick in activity.

"Last year was too crazy," she said. "During the height of the art bubble, prices were increasing 10- or 20-fold in pace with the latest auction results. The market has toned down to pre-bubble prices. Everybody has been so worried but the results this year are unexpectedly good."

Collectors were particularly happy with the new environment. Eijiro Imafuku, an IT entrepreneur and publisher of the contemporary art magazine ARTiT, snapped up a suite of five handsome geometric abstractions on paper from 1996 by German painter Tomma Abst, for what he described as a "very reasonable price" from London's Greengrassi Gallery. Shinwa Art Auction president Yoichiro Kurata was also shopping.

"It's a buyer's market," Kurata said. "Dealers are negotiating prices and you have the luxury of thinking about your purchase."

An American art professional who requested to not be identified echoed Kurata's sentiment, saying, "The pressure to buy in the first minute is gone, but that's a good thing. It puts the control back in the hand of the collector, which is where it should be."

Conventional wisdom among art specialists looking for a silver lining since the recession began is that economic hardship would force dealers to focus on quality. At Art Basel, this meant the increased presence of veteran artists like Yayoi Kusama, whose fabric phallus sculptures dating from the 1960s and '70s were showcased by London gallery Victoria Miro. Works by participants in the concurrent 53rd Venice Biennale could also be found dotting the fair.

Other galleries saw the low expectations for sales as an opportunity to introduce young or under-recognized artists. ShugoArts' six-person group show included Teppei Kaneuji's constructions of everyday materials such as wood, plastic piping and toy figurines, slathered in colorful plaster, in the 1,500 euro to 12,000 euro (¥200,000-¥1.6 million) range.

Taka Ishii Gallery dedicated its booth in the Art Premiere section of the fair to New York-based performance artist Ei Arakawa's limited-edition poster-format prints priced at 3,150 euro (¥424,000) for individual works and 30,000 euro (¥4 million) for a complete set of 11 works.

Taka Ishii conceded that his artist, Arakawa, was not very market oriented but stressed that participation at Art Basel was not necessarily about the bottom line.

"We've gotten a lot of remarks on (the gutsiness of) our booth," Ishii said. "But if I bring a salable artist and then sell his work, it's not that interesting for me. I'm a lot happier if, by bringing challenging work and then having different people see it, I can develop relationships that pay off in the future."

Part of Art Basel's branding is that it presents an authentic art experience and not simply a market place. Presentations of solo shows and large-scale projects are central to this strategy, but the fair also scored a coup this year with its production of "Il Tempo del Postino," a group show curated for the stage that had a three- night run at Theater Basel June 10-12.

Many of the performances inverted the relationship between audience and actor. Paris-based video artist Anri Sala planted kimono-clad opera singers bearing white neon folding fans in the darkened aisles of the theater for a disorienting rendition of a Madame Butterfly aria. American installation artist Matthew Barney plotted with avant-garde composer and longtime collaborator Jonathan Bepler to surprise attendees with a guerrilla orchestra in the theater atrium during the intermission.

Yet the draw of such star-studded events underscored the limits of the market as satellite fairs that had previously thrived on Art Basel spillover, such as Liste, Volta and Scope were hard-pressed to attract clientele. Despite her success with photographer Sugimoto and high-profile painters Marlene Dumas and Michael Borremans, gallerist Koyanagi noted that collector tastes are growing conservative and worried that young artists may suffer as a result.

Ultimately, while some dealers came away feeling reassured, and others confronted overdrawn bank accounts, the true position of privilege this year belonged to the visitors, who could sample the art on display and then return home satiated.