They say that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. So are you among those who believe that recessionary times are good for entrepreneurial adventure, or do you think that the best thing to do for the next year or two is to tighten the belt and hunker down until the storm passes?

Art fairs are a good way to measure these contrasting outlooks. There are those who point to the recent instalments of the Frieze and Art Basel Miami Beach fairs (both of which were markedly restrained in comparison to the buzzy ambience they showed in the boom years) and see their slower pace as a sign that fairs are by no means immune from recessionary flu. Then there are others - mainly the dealers exhibiting at the fairs - who are looking to art and antiques fairs as the best way to continue trading during the downturn.

One can be fairly sure that more and more shops and galleries will be forced to close in the months ahead, but perhaps fairs do represent a more cost-effective way to get goods to market.

The coming weeks will offer plenty of opportunities to gauge the viability of art and antiques fairs as a trading model during tough times. It's all very well for the fairs organisers to point to a healthy number of dealers signing up for stands and declare this as evidence that all's well in the market. But a full quota of exhibitors is hardly a measure of a thriving trade. Given the downturn of business in their shops, it's understandable that dealers will want to snap up a chance to exhibit - all the more so if stand prices can be kept affordable. But the real litmus test will be whether people turn up and buy.

Next week sees the opening of the 2009 London Art Fair, one of the more important 'consumer-based' fairs held each January at the Business Design Centre in Islington, North London (this year from 14th to 18th January). This is the fair that two or three years ago set the cat among the pigeons by marketing itself as a 'shopping' fair for middle-market collectors and the general public. It seemed to be saying that art was a commodity like anything else on the High Street; what it needed most was demystifying - kick out the snobs and pull in the punters.

Whether this strategy worked or not remains open to conjecture. After all, the art boom was booming back then so everything seemed comparatively rosy. During the two or three years that followed the art market was increasingly preyed upon by carnivorous operators from the financial community who saw it as an unregulated market ripe for insider speculation. Prices sky-rocketed. Compared to those beasts, mere 'shoppers' now seem a benign species.

But the London Art Fair does have a buzz that other more select, up-market art fairs don't have. This may be because it welcomes the average collector with no art-world pretensions who can feel relaxed browsing around the stands, unabashedly seeking out that elusive, affordable abstract canvas to match the sofa. In a way this is art-shopping at its most down-to-earth. It says you don't have to be a millionaire, a hedge fund trader, or an avant-garde fashionista to appreciate and buy art. You just need to know what you like.

The London Art Fair also offers exhibition and sales opportunities for the thousands of artists who are not superstars of the Turner Prize/Hoxton/Frieze/Zoo/ArtBasel/Conceptual circuit and whose aspirations accordingly might seem more traditional and less risqué. This is the other side of the art market - a sector as vast and as commercially active as the sniffy enclave of the 'cutting-edge', but without the self-regard or the media puffery. Many of these artists earn a good living from their work and Art London is one of the best opportunities for them to grow their collecting base.

This year the London Art Fair fair celebrates its 21st birthday and showcases over 100 leading UK galleries showing exceptional Modern British artists and international contemporary work.

As usual there will be a broad range of art for sale, from the established traditional names to emerging contemporary talents. Typical of the range of quality material on show are Ben Nicholson's oil and pencil on canvas Cornish Landscape of 1949, to be shown by Richard Green, and one or two new works by the increasingly well-known Cornish artist, Simon Allen.

Drawing inspiration from the Cornish landscape where he lives, Allen's startling wall-based sculptures _in carved wood covered in gold or silver leaf (Glide is illustrated elsewhere on this page) have been winning admirers both in the UK and abroad in recent years. Their gently undulating shapes, rippling surfaces and lustrous finishes bespeak a meticulous expertise in traditional gilding which Allen has transferred into a sculptural medium to extraordinary effect. His work is now in a number of private and corporate collections as discerning buyers cotton onto a rare talent that successfully melds the finest aspects of the craft tradition with a very contemporary sculptural sensibility. The London Art Fair offers a chance to see further examples of Simon Allen's work on the stand of Goldfish Contemporary Art.

Another fair that will contribute a further barometric reading of the health of the market in the coming weeks is The Winter Decorative Antiques and Textiles Fair held each year in The Marquee in Battersea Park (this year from January 20th to 25th).

This is a fair where those with an eye for interior design can take their imagination for a walk. Whether it will also exercise their wallets this year remains to be seen. The emphasis at this fair is broadly on the decorator trade. But it is another relaxed and unpressured environment for the casual punter looking for that crazy ostentatious gilded Baroque pier glass to add some glamour to the hall, or a crumbling old moss-coated country-house statue to add ambience to the conservatory. This year might be a good time to buy. The trade will want to keep the cash flowing. So make an offer. Barter until the cows come home.

The Art Key will be at the London Art Fair and Decorative Antiques and Textiles Fairs so watch this space for a full report of these events and an indication of whether the market is holding up against the recessionary tide.

Captions

Simon Allen, Glide, 12ct white gold leaf on carved wood, 118 cm x 148 cm. To be shown by Goldfish Contemporary Fine Art at the 2009 London Art Fair

Emmet Kierans, Bathroom Boy, 2008, Oil on canvas, 78cm x 55cm. Courtesy of Canvas, to be shown at the 2009 London Art Fair

Ben Nicholson, Cornish Landscape, 1949, Oil and pencil on canvas, 21.5cm x 29.2cm. Courtesy of Richard Green, to be shown at the 2009 London Art Fair

Wang Wei, Standard Room Series, C type photographs, 40cm x 50cm. Courtesy of RedT.art. To be shown at the 2009 London Art Fair