Punk rock legend Patti Smith, at the Standard Hotel for one of the many parties encircling Art Basel Miami Beach, took time to chat with a trio of strangers about her favorite pieces in the convention center: a tiny photograph by Man Ray and two large paintings by Yves Klein. Supermodel Naomi Campbell, also at the Standard on Friday night to celebrate a book launch by photographer Bruce Weber, took time to be nasty to a couple of locals who questioned her fondness for Fidel Castro.

Time. And elbow room. They are what distinguish the eighth edition of an art fair that over time became overrun by hedge-fund folks who treated art-buying as just another form of crass consumption, and the party crowd, which jetted in just to say they were in the fray.

One bright spot of the worldwide recession: It seems to have restored rigor to the trade show, which ends Sunday. Crowds have been appreciably thinner this year, but gallerists exhibiting everywhere from Basel proper to Scope, Art Miami, NADA and Pulse are reporting strong sales -- and they're smiling a lot more than they did last year, when the economy took a nosedive right before the fair opened.

``This year, Basel belongs to the people who are really interested in art, not the superfluous people. There's a lot less ornament and a lot more substance,'' declared a charged Micky Wolfson Jr., founder of Miami Beach's Wolfsonian Museum, at the Bass Museum for the opening of a show featuring selections from Mexico's acclaimed Jumex Collection.

The show was one of the big hits of Basel week, and no one was more psyched about it than Dzine, the Chicago-based artist who took a section of the Bass' ground floor for a project featuring his blinged-out street-culture artifacts. His spinning, Swarovski-crystal-encrusted turntable, which greets visitors entering the Bass, sold for $75,000 before the show even opened.

``You can feel the energy this time. Every gallery is presenting their best, most honest work,'' said Dzine, a.k.a. Carlos Rolon.

MOVING FORWARD

Something different was in the air from the moment Art Basel kicked off with a party on the whimsical deck of the Mondrian Hotel, the sun setting in shades of red over a sparkling Miami skyline that boasts more slick (if empty) towers than ever.

``Miami is so incredibly beautiful this year. You should be here to see this,'' a German collector in a de rigueur skinny gray suit and chunky black glasses gushed to his wife over his cellphone.

The overseas Art Basel crowd used to spit out terms like ``superficial'' and ``immature'' when they landed in Miami. But much has changed since the contemporary art fair, the largest and most prestigious in the world, put down stakes here in 2002.

Certainly Miami has. The recession may have spared very few corners of South Florida, but everywhere crowds gathered this past past week, from South Beach to downtown Miami to Midtown, the city shimmered with fresh architecture, new galleries and eateries and high-end stores like the just-opened Christian Louboutin boutique in the Design District.

But no structure was more of a revelation than the de la Cruz Collection Contemporary Art Space, a sophisticated three-story museum for Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz's world-class art, which opened in the Design District this week.

``[Developer] Tony Goldman says that you have to complete a smile in a city,'' said Miami architect Chad Oppenheim, who opened his Sunset Island home midweek to host an Art Asia VIP party. ``Miami has just completed a bunch of projects. We're filling in the gaps.''

The Ear, a film by Chinese artist Yi Zhou that features rap and pop artist Pharrell Williams, was projected onto a wall out back. Oppenheim seemed to easily shake off the fact that Williams decided to blow off his party. But Jeff Lawson, director of Art Asia, did get stuck on one point: ``More people seem upset by the fact that Pharrell is not here than by the fact that Yi Zhou wasn't able to make it to Miami.''

But that's not to say that Miami is simply shallow and celeb-obsessed. The art scene, already chugging when Art Basel decided to launch its new fair here, has deepened a good deal, due in part to the influence of the fair.

``Each time we come back to Miami, we find a city growing more mature, more sophisticated and more interested in culture,'' said Silvia Venturini Fendi, of the luxury brand, a steady sponsor of Design Miami, one of 19 satellite fairs.

Not everything about Miami's art scene is moving forward, however. Trouble continues at the Miami Art Museum, from which director Terry Riley resigned recently. During Basel week, Ella Fontanals-Cisneros (whose private collection CIFO is housed in downtown Miami) turned in a letter of resignation to MAM's board of trustees, according to museum-connected sources.

ON THE SIDELINES

Another hot topic this week: Art Basel's selection committee consistently allows only a couple of Miami galleries to exhibit in the convention center. The one gallery regularly invited back is Fred Snitzer's. And the fact he's on the selection committee raises eyebrows in town.

``The argument is that our galleries are just not mature enough yet,'' said Miami artist Carlos Betancourt, who hosted a small party in the slick, four-story condo he rented so out-of-town friends didn't have to pay for a hotel.

Betancourt, who talked art with a crew of other artists (some at the party deemed the many artworks hanging in the rented condo ``really bad,'' so most pieces were turned around so you only saw backs of canvasses), celebrates Basel's presence, but: ``Every year, you can go in the convention center and see some really good galleries. And some really bad galleries. They get in year after year, and some Miami galleries that have some really amazing artists get left out,'' Betancourt says.

He and other local artists agree that when you remove all the noise, Basel provides great inspiration.

Said Miami artist Wendy Wischer: ``There is space this time. Space in between events you have to rush to. Space, literally, to see all the art in the convention center. Space to think about art and talk about art.''

The week blew away Jhon Charles, a young Haitian artist staying in the Miami home of novelist Edwidge Danticat during Basel.

``In Haitian art, we use whatever materials we can find. But walking around the fairs, I was amazed at how many more materials artists from other parts of the world have,'' Charles said. ``I see all the endless possibilities now. And I have tremendous joy to be able to say, `I'm part of this art world, too.' ''

Miami Herald staff writers Audra D.S. Burch and Fabiola Santiago contributed to this report.