She was alluding to the storm caused by a recent "60 Minutes" blast at the contemporary-art world.

Though she is a bright light within the Israeli contemporary-art world, Ms. Rovner is not a household name there yet.

With the contemporary-art world still suffering from a sluggish economy, many galleries, most of which deal with younger or lesser-known artists, simply can't make a go of it.

Mr. Broida, a Los Angeles real estate developer, is a familiar face from the contemporary-art world in the 1980's.

A few weeks before "BitStreams" and "010101" were to open, much of the international contemporary-art world gathered in New York for a trade fair, the 2001 Armory Show.

"After so many years in the contemporary-art world, I feel there's a problem," Mr. Xu says.

Mr. Deller is popular among his contemporaries, however, and London's clubby contemporary-art world had predicted for weeks that he would take the prize.

That year, Willie Bester took Mr. Mthethwa to Ms. Givon's gallery, and she has watched him become, at 42, in great demand in the contemporary-art world.

The contemporary-art world is certainly not the only public that museums have, but it remains a significant part of its core audience, and its opinions matter.

Opening Night, Open Wallets Larry Gagosian is the talk of the contemporary-art world, both here and in New York.