From Michigan to Italy, contemporary-art collectors are passing on works by international art stars and skipping far-flung art fairs and auctions. This year, they're buying local.

In Detroit, major collector and steel company executive Gary Wasserman says he's stopped buying works by England's Anish Kapoor and China's Yue Minjun so he can focus more on buying "powerfully Midwestern" art by artists like Brian Carpenter, whose $1,000 photographs often feature images of dead deer, Lake Erie nuclear reactors and snowy footprints.