After fairs at which dealers don't display artists' names, let alone the price, and where the stockroom (at Art Basel Miami, a conference hall of its own) is unmentionable, the Contemporary Art Society's (CAS) Art Futures (6-12 March) made a refreshing change.
Held each year in the Bloomberg Space, it goes out of its way to make the experience less threatening. The prices are public, there is a visible store and staff wear saucer-sized badges exhorting everyone to "buy art".
Most items cost far less than £5,000, so they are in reach of museum budgets. Only the many security staff remind you that this is a news organisation terrified of terrorist attacks or angry former interviewees.
All fairs have an air of the glorified jumble sale, but this one is jollier, with a younger crowd and far less of the desperate competitiveness of the grander events. This year's innovation was to invite artists to help select, with the likes of Cornelia Parker and Michael Craig-Martin picking their tips for the top.
Some of the artists shown are quite well known, such as Laura Ford, fresh from Wellcome Collection's Sleeping and Dreaming show, and Ruth Claxton. Among the collectors were Stuart Evans, David Gilbert and David Roberts.
The CAS's main focus is its members, but museums among the buyers included Manchester Art Gallery, which spent £10,000 on three pieces, and the New Art Gallery, Walsall, which bought a Cloud photograph by Matt & Ross for £3,000.
The gloomy economic news and the fair's edgier feel - fewer paintings, more offbeat sculpture - seemed to have no effect on sales, which the CAS said were up on last year.
Jane Morris is an arts journalist and editor
Held each year in the Bloomberg Space, it goes out of its way to make the experience less threatening. The prices are public, there is a visible store and staff wear saucer-sized badges exhorting everyone to "buy art".
Most items cost far less than £5,000, so they are in reach of museum budgets. Only the many security staff remind you that this is a news organisation terrified of terrorist attacks or angry former interviewees.
All fairs have an air of the glorified jumble sale, but this one is jollier, with a younger crowd and far less of the desperate competitiveness of the grander events. This year's innovation was to invite artists to help select, with the likes of Cornelia Parker and Michael Craig-Martin picking their tips for the top.
Some of the artists shown are quite well known, such as Laura Ford, fresh from Wellcome Collection's Sleeping and Dreaming show, and Ruth Claxton. Among the collectors were Stuart Evans, David Gilbert and David Roberts.
The CAS's main focus is its members, but museums among the buyers included Manchester Art Gallery, which spent £10,000 on three pieces, and the New Art Gallery, Walsall, which bought a Cloud photograph by Matt & Ross for £3,000.
The gloomy economic news and the fair's edgier feel - fewer paintings, more offbeat sculpture - seemed to have no effect on sales, which the CAS said were up on last year.
Jane Morris is an arts journalist and editor
