At the main entrance of pavilion 7, the booth for Helga de Alvear was buzzing with TV cameras and press photographers. As camera crews were filming de Alvear being interviewed in the mist of controversy, her face stoic and unresponsive, I walked straight to this Thomas Demand photograph to the left of her and thought “I saw you in Venice.’

The ice was melting in the glass bowls that had once chilled Champagne and the catering staff was packing away long plastic tubes filled with winter fruit. The fair will already filled with people and there was no wait to get in. I had clearly missed a morning party.

I kept finding myself being drawn to a well represented group of Berlin galleries and German artists, almost as if I was looking for a familiar face. However, I also couldn’t help but notice and secretly chuckle at the one lone Philip Guston painting at Hauser & Wirth behind the gallerist desk placed almost like an impulse buy and a segment of the former Cuba pavilion from the Venice Biennale at another booth.