Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Standing next to a chalk drawing by Tacita Dean costing 140,000 euros (or $205,000), New York art dealer Marian Goodman explained that she is pricing artworks in that currency at the Art Basel Miami Beach fair this week because she has ``taken a bath'' on the depressed dollar.

With the dollar trading at $1.46 to the euro and $2.03 to the British pound, artists based in Europe and the U.K. now insist on being paid in their native currencies, and their dealers comply. The euro, Goodman said, will continue to ``fly sky high'' against the dollar.

``It's a big issue for American collectors,'' said New York gallerist Sean Kelly, whose artists come from Portugal, England, Cuba, Belgium and Germany as well as the U.S.

Sixty percent of Kelly's business at the fair is priced in euros or pounds, and 40 percent is in dollars. When the Miami fair began five years ago, it was the other way around, he said.

To avoid paying too many conversion charges, some American galleries have opened separate bank accounts in Europe, said Christian Alexa, director of New York's Lombard-Freid Gallery. The gallery is quoting prices in dollars, but has to convert profits to euros to pay artists like Dan Perjovschi, who lives in Bucharest, and Mounir Fatmi, a Moroccan sculptor who lives in Paris.

``I only wish our artists would take dollars!'' joked Samia Saouma, director of Berlin's Galerie Max Hetzler. (A new painting by Albert Oehlen had just sold for 250,000 euros (or $366,000.)

``Because of fluctuating exchange rates, you can lose $40,000 on an exchange,'' said David Nolan, a New York dealer sharing a white-carpeted booth with Berlin's Aurel Scheibler, where a small painting by Paul Klee was going for 1.39 million euros, or $2.04 million, on the fair's opening day.

Costly Delays

If a collector doesn't decide right away, he could end up paying more if the work is priced in another currency and the dollar falls against that currency by the time he returns to buy. Likewise, dealers could be on the losing end. Dealers quote prices and invoice later for the amount set at the point of sale, so if a currency swings against them during that time lapse, they have to make up the difference.

There have been misunderstandings among American collectors visiting some European galleries at art fairs like this, Nolan said, when they assume prices are quoted in dollars, while the galleries presume collectors know they charge euros. A gallery may quote a price of ``one hundred thousand'' without confirming that it's in euros, not dollars.

Nolan said dealers are obliged to give buyers precise prices and their currencies. ``We're in America,'' Nolan said. ``We may have to pay the artist in euros, but we have to set prices in U.S. dollars.''

Package Deals

Things were more downwardly mobile at Shanghai's ShanghART booth, which artist Xu Zhen had outfitted as a convenience store selling bags of noodles and boxes of toothpaste -- just the packaging, not the goods -- copied from the real things.

Prices here used the product's actual dollar amounts but quoted in Chinese yuan -- currently trading at about 1 yuan to 14 cents. That meant that individual works, like the colorful boxes of cigarettes, ranged between 30 cents and $3.

Needless to say, the ``art'' flew off the shelves. Asked what she would do if the store sold out, dealer Sine Bepler shrugged and said, ``We'll show empty shelves.''

(Linda Yablonsky is an art critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this review: Linda Yablonsky in New York at fabyab@earthlink.net.

Last Updated: December 7, 2007 12:14 EST