A nine-by-20 metre inflatable gibbon looking for love presides over the entrance to the Sydney Contemporary art fair.
While Lisa Roet's Skywalker Gibbon is searching across the rooftops, the humans down below are looking for artworks, at Australia's biggest commercial art fair.
"How many of you have ever been to an art fair with a gibbon on the roof? That has to be a first," founder Tim Etchells told reporters.
Now in its eighth edition, the event usually brings in about $20 million in sales, with 85 galleries and the work of more than 400 artists on display.
Once again an artwork by the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye at the Utopia Art booth is a star attraction and is expected to set a price benchmark, with a $3.35 million price tag.
The event attracts hundreds of high-end collectors from across Australia and internationally, Etchells said.
While there is no doubt the global art market is going through a challenging time, there is still a great deal of optimism, he said.
One event in the talks program co-curated by Micheal Do is a discussion about what happens when art meets money.
"It's not a bad thing, it's really exciting," he promised.
A dozen large scale works (including the inflatable gibbon) make up the fair's installation program, which also features new sculptures, The Cloudgazer and Sensuous Gyre by Patricia Piccinini along with 2019's Shoeform (Tresses).
Arrernte artist Alfred Lowe is the winner of the $10,000 MA Art Prize for early career artists announced at the fair on Wednesday, for his large-scale vessel All Dressed Up I, made with stoneware and raffia.
Lowe, who has been working in ceramics since 2021, said the win was exciting, and he feels Sydney Contemporary is the best art show in the country.
But the crowds gathering to admire his work were a little overwhelming, he said.
"It's good, it's slightly scary, but it's nice to have people enjoy what I have made," he told AAP.
New works by Ethiopian born, South Sudanese photographer Atong Atem were on show at the MARS gallery stall, as well as the artist's experiments with east African textile designs.
Atem produced some of these on a small scale for $150, telling AAP that as a young artist she is aware that so much art is unaffordable.
Gallerist Andy Dinan from MARS said it was a great effort to show artists at the event, but she wanted to be true to what the Melbourne gallery actually displays.
"People are not spending as much as they were, I'm really nervous," she said.
"Everyone tells me Sydney is full of art lovers, but times are tough."
In 2024 the event features an expanded works on paper section with 26 galleries presenting prints, watercolours and even paper sculptures.
Sydney Contemporary at Carriageworks runs until Sunday.
AAP travelled with the assistance of event organisers.
