“In your country the very wealthy are living in the past, still buying high-value French Impressionists, afraid to take risks. I suppose it’s because we have a prosperous middle class in Belgium. In Britain you seem to have just higher class and lower class”.Mr Hoviele is not exhibiting the British artists he represents – David Tremlett and Allan Charlton, who paint minimalist abstracts. He has been encouraged by Art95 to add international appeal by showing for the first time in Britain his five young Americans.Carol Szymanski sculpts forms derived from sounds: her copper horn is for sale at $4,000 (£2,600). John Zinsser does depth-of-field abstracts at $2,000-$4,000 (£1,300-£2,600). There are works by Phil Sims at $4,000-$6,000 (£2,600-£3,900) and by Dan Walshat $2,000 (£1,300). Big, tightly-controlled monochromes by the established Joseph Marioni are for sale at $16,000 (£10,300).

Mr Hoviele says: “They are mostly cheap: that is my policy.”Going American could be a smart move. Since the IRA armistice, American tourists have packed London: hotels and restaurants have found it hard to cope. Dealers at the fair are waiting to see how many art collectors are among them.Gill Hedley, director of the Contemporary Art Society and a member of the fair committee, negotiated the entry of the four British cutting-edge galleries. “Because of the past history of the London Contemporary Art Fair,” she says, “those British collectors who are sophisticated and informed don’t want to buy in London. Also, London galleries know there are markets in Europe and the United States, so that is where they tend to concentrate.”Hedley believes there has been no really exciting collecting fashion in this country since the turn of the century, when businessmen and industrialists bought Pre-Raphaelites and great Victorian narrative paintings, virtually creating a taste. “But in t h is of all years,” she says, “when British contemporary art is doing so extraordinarily well, both critically and commercially, it is vital to have at the fair those galleries that have taken risks.

We want people to turn to Art95 to see what is happening “.Though he’s exhibiting, Karsten Schubert is not convinced: “At the fair you pay £190 per square metre but still don’t get the audience It’s ludicrous. It will be better than last year, but I wish more high-profile people had been attracted. Where is th e Victoria Miro Gallery, Anthony Reynolds, Interim Art, the Cabinet, Laure Genillard, Hales? There really is potential for an international market in London.”Only about 10 per cent of visitors to the fair – 24,000 last year – come from abroad. Ms Sicks, the director, is not sold on the idea of a “purist cutting-edge fair”. It would alienate the public, she says: “Of course I’d like to have the Lisson, D’Offa y and Waddington, but all international fairs offer a wider range than that. You have to go for the bigger picture.”In November, when the biggest contemporary art fair in Cologne allocated the now-famous Hall 5 to 32 buzzy young international galleries (who in previous years had protested outside under the name “Unfair”), Lisson and D’Offay stunned other dealers by joining forces with them.

Perhaps that was what was meant to happen on the ground floor of Art95.One young British artist whose work is being shown at the fair by a Belgian dealer, in coals-to-Newcastle style, is Adrian Wiszniewski – one of the Glasgow painters who made a reputation in the Eighties. His large canvas The Making of Synoptics, showingwomen making a neon wall sculpture, has been priced at £16,000 by Micheline Lessafre, a former museum art historian who runs Gallery F17 in Ghent. She prices Wiszniewski’s drawings, reflecting on Matisse and Picasso, at £600-£1,000.Gallery F17 was founded five years ago by a typical Belgian art-collecting couple, Etienne and Roos Tallieu Now aged 45, they made their money in advertising. “Once the Belgians have their house and car,” Ms Lessafre explains, “they want to buy art.”Lessafre had shown Wiszniewski twice at F17 by the time he left the London gallery of Nigel Greenwood, shortly before it closed in 1991. She represents another former Greenwood artist, Christopher Le Brun, who is also represented by Marlborough Fine Art.At the fair, Marlborough and their graphics arm will be exhibiting more established artists such as Paula Rego and Frank Auerbach.”When I took on Le Brun and Wiszniewski,” says Lessafre, “nobody had heard of them All British artists need a gallery on the Continent. They feel lost on that island.”Wiszniewski himself values the Continental connection.

“The fact is, you can’t just turn up at the Basel fair every year and expect to understand how it works You do need to be represented. I can now show in Ghent, then drive to Cologne for lunch, or even Paris.”The fair is Ms Lessafre’s opportunity to give a first showing in Britain of an established Belgian artist, Jacques Charlier. Virtually unknown here, he is recognised in Belgium as the art-historical successor to the quirky tradition of Ensor, Rops and M a gritte.Contemporary art seems cheaper on the Continent – and it seems to shift quicker, too. What did Ms Lessafre expect from her first encounter with the British contemporary art market? “We’re curious to meet people,” she says.