The market for contemporary art is so buoyant that one of Australia's major fairs is becoming an annual event.
The Melbourne Art Fair has been held every other year since 1988, but will be staged annually from February 2024.
The move comes in response to demand from buyers, with sales at the 2022 event topping $10.5 million, director Maree Di Pasquale said.
"There are economic challenges for all of us, but it seems that the desire to buy and live with or invest in art is still very much there," she told AAP.
With 60 galleries on the slate, the Melbourne fair is smaller than Sydney Contemporary, which boasts showings from more than 90 galleries and this year sold art worth north of $21 million.
But who is comparing Melbourne with Sydney? Not Di Pasquale, who said exhibition spots at the Melbourne Art Fair were hard to get, ensuring a high standard of work.
"We do the curation... what punters see when they come through the door is really the best of the best," she said.
It's also a way to ensure the punters aren't too intimidated to walk through the door in the first place - something they may well feel approaching a commercial gallery.
The art fair model removes those barriers, Di Pasquale said, and even if people don't buy anything, they're welcome to ask as many questions as they like.
"It's a chance to experience art and learn something new and hopefully one day you will buy a piece."
The 2024 fair will feature a major $100,000 commission by artist Julie Rrap, widely considered a foundational contemporary feminist artist.
Her life-size bronze sculpture SOMOS (Standing On My Own Shoulders) is made from two casts of the artist's body, with one appearing to support the other.
It will be unveiled at the fair before becoming part of the permanent collection at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, which co-commissioned the piece.
Galleries that have been exhibiting at the fair since the get-go include Melbourne's Niagara Galleries and Sydney's Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.
Art fairs have also become a core part of the business model for galleries worldwide, ensuring time-poor art lovers and curators can take in a huge amount all in one place.
The 2024 fair will have areas dedicated to large-scale art, moving image and performance works - very different to the first fair at the Royal Exhibition Building 35 years ago.
In between there have been 30-gallery showings in a tent in Southbank, before a move to the fair's current venue at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Melbourne Art Fair returns from February 22-25.
