This, the opening line from an article in this month's Hamptons magazine about summer in the swanky resort town, says it all about what exhibitors were dealing with at Scope Hamptons, the contemporary art fair held in Hampton Hall in Southampton, July 15-17, 2005.

On the one hand, you have the obvious gravitational pull of the Hamptons crowd with their megabucks and airy pretensions to glitter. On the other, there is Scope's trademark profile as a fair for scrappy up-and-comers, with a leaner, less grandiose feeling than other art fairs.

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