Taking a brief pause on their spring migration, a group of the rarest global highfliers alighted briefly last Wednesday on humble Randalls Island, where — not far from a homeless shelter, a State Police station, a fire academy and a psychiatric hospital — the contemporary art fair Frieze New York has thrown up its big top.

The stated purpose of this much-ballyhooed gathering of 200 dealers from around the world is the presentation and sale of blue-chip contemporary art. Yet as much as it offers a chance to ogle lots of what a critic for this newspaper termed modish “junk art,” Frieze also provides a choice opportunity to observe an elite group of people from among the ranks of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index doing what comes most naturally to them. That is, jockeying for dominance.

Take Michael R. Bloomberg himself. There he was on Wednesday, attired in a dark suit, a patterned power tie and tassel loafers and flanked by a Praetorian Guard comprising a former first deputy mayor, a heavy-hitting art consultant, his decorator and several refrigerator-size fellows, all gliding past security guards and onto the sales floor fully 20 minutes before the fair’s official opening.