Anne Beresford "All this & More" at Judi Rotenberg Gallery. Image: Judi Rotenberg Gallery

Boston’s Judi Rotenberg Gallery, a Newbury Street fixture since 1971, will close June 19th. The gallery has mounted its final show, pairing works by Anne Beresford with with a survey of gallery artists.

The gallery’s director, Kristen Dodge, and manager, Patton Hindle,  are opening a Dodge Gallery, a new Lower East Side space slated to launch in September. Several Rotenberg artists are expected to join Dodge.

Rotenberg’s owner Abigail Ross Goodman, took over the helm from mother, Judi Rotenberg in 2001.

“There’s no juicy story,” Goodman said about her decision to close. “This wasn’t a dissatisfaction, but an interest in new things. I’m intrigued by non-profit spaces and public art, but I don’t have any clearly defined plans.”

Goodman said the decision was not influenced by the economy. “It was not an economic choice,” she said. “That didn’t impact the decision at all.”

She was upbeat describing recent efforts by area museums who have bolstered their contemporary art programs. “The institutions here are putting a lot of time, effort and money behind contemporary art,” said Goodman. “The artwork I seen being made here is top-notch. The…

Dealer David Zwirner has purchased a three-story commercial building at 537 West 20th Street for $8 million, according to the real estate website Property Shark. “We can confirm the purchase of a great piece of real estate on 20th Street,” said gallery spokeswoman Julia Joern. “We are especially excited since it is so close to our existing location on 19th Street.”

The building, which was leased to the Bermuda Limousine Int’l Inc. since 1988, was originally priced at $14 million. The deed transferred last week.

The 27,000 square foot building was constructed in 1933.

Zwirner runs three galleries on 19th Street at nos. 519, 525 and 533. The new space is likely to house Zwirner’s secondary market business, formerly operated as Zwirner and Wirth and run from a townhouse on East 69th Street. That partnership ceased in June 2009. Hauser  and Wirth now occupies that space.

Zwirner made news earlier this week over a lawsuit filed by Miami developer Craig Robins. The New York Post story here. The gallery opened in 1993 in SoHo. Artists include James Welling, Marlene Dumas and Luc Tuymans.

The New York Times reports that Pace and Wildenstein are splitting up after a 17 year partnership. Wildenstein had owned 49 percent of the Pace, according to the article.

A flurry of dealers are taking advantage of Manhattan’s sluggish commercial real estate market.

Jeanne Greenburg-Rohatyn is looking for a Bowery outpost. She currently runs Salon 94 from a Carnegie Hill townhouse. Her downtown branch, Salon 94 Freemans, is tucked on a Lower East Side alleyway.

Gavin Brown is doubling the size of his gallery, expanding into space formerly used by his meatpacking landlord Pat LaFrieda. Read more on that here and here.

Brown is said to have also recently acquired a building in Harlem, though it’s not known if he plans to use it as a residence, or for exhibiting art, or both.

These examples follow Marianne Boesky‘s recent uptown play. Boesky has leased an Upper East Side townhouse where she has begun exhibiting historical works in a more “cozy” atmosphere. She will continue to run her Chelsea branch. More on that here.

Yesterday a red-faced, stooped Larry Salander sat in a Manhattan criminal courthouse, the walls bare of any art, finally admitting he had masterminded schemes to defraud his clients, consignors, investors and banks. Salander was accompanied by two of his seven children. His wife Julie did not appear.

Salander’s lawyer said the dealer had had a stroke about ten days earlier. The DA said Salander was abusing alcohol. The hearing was one of the most depressing events I have witnessed in nearly a decade on the arts beat. Was greed the only reason Salander had begun stealing from his friends, clients and colleagues? How does someone fall so far, so fast?

With his guilty plea, Salander waived rights to a trial or appeal. He will be sentenced to 6 to 18 years in prison and $120 million in restitution.  Bloomberg News’ Philip Boroff, who has doggedly covered the story from the start, covered yesterday’s proceedings here.

Representatives from artist’s estates — Earl Davis, son of Stuart Davis, John Crawford, son of Ralston Crawford, and Kinney Frelinghuysen, nephew of Suzy Frelinghuysen — looked on.

Salander read from a prepared …

The New York Post is reporting that dealer Larry Salander is expected to plead guilty today to a $100 million art fraud in connection with a long running scheme to steal millions from art collectors, artist estates and others.

Read the New York Post story here.

The deal, re-capped by the Post, states that Salander will plead guilty to about 24 charges and will be required to pay some of the funds back.

His likely prison term, according to article, is 6 and 18 years. He had faced 25 years if he was convicted.

Here are links to some of Bloomberg’s earlier coverage of the story:

Salander sued by clients here.

Salander arrested here.

Salander opens a gallery in Millbrook here.

Salander arrested for a second time here.

Salander art heads to auction here.

On Thursday night Sterling Ruby’s first show with dealer Pace Wildenstein opened on West 22nd Street. The LA based artist’s “2Traps” comprises a pair of ominous metal sculptures. One is a modified metal bus, outfitted with woofers and solitary confinement cages. The second piece, “Pig Pen,” is made from metal security doors of a type found in the roughest of neighborhoods.

Collectors Michael Ovitz and Adam Lindemann, architect David Adjaye and Pace artists Chuck Close, Tara Donovan and Tim Eitel were among the attendees. The group migrated to the glitzy Standard Hotel’s party room afterward, where expansive views of the Hudson, glasses of Moet and cheeseburgers were the main attractions.

A new repository for information on American collectors, dealers and other market makers is now available courtesy of The Frick Collection’s Center for the History of Collecting in America, which has launched an online database.

The Archives Directory currently includes 1500 names, including information on Pop collectors Ethel and Robert Scull, financier David Rockefeller, Old Master merchants Duveen Brothers, and Eli Broad.

The site is an ongoing project, according to manager Samantha Deutch, who is preparing the next tranche of 1500 names.

Currently missing are many contemporary players, including the likes of Larry Gagosian, Beth Rudin DeWoody and Glenn Fuhrman.

Info can be contributed via the site. Link to that page here.

The Frick has also launched a database devoted to 17th Century Dutch art inventories, available here. A database of Spanish artists is forthcoming.

Most people glaze over the confusing array of microscopic auction catalog symbols.

A year after Sotheby’s introduced a third party guarantee or irrevocable bid symbol, I spoke with Sotheby’s Mitchell Zuckerman, Christie’s Marc Porter, art lawyer Ralph Lerner and dealer William Acquavella to find out how these deals really work.

My article in the the January, 2010 issue of The Art Newspaper can be found here.

The March 3-7 Armory Show includes a 285 exhibitors, with considerable turnover among the 211 dealers in contemporary section. A post about galleries who dropped out of the fair is here.

Overall in the contemporary section, 92 dealers will be presenting in 2010 who didn’t participate in 2009. Sixty-five of them are first time exhibitors at the fair.

Some of the newcomers are so new, they had websites still under construction.

Here is the list of new exhibitors. First-timers are indicated with a star. Others on the list below didn’t take part in 2009, but were in the fair at some point in the past.

LIST OF DEALERS EXHIBITING IN 2010 WHO DIDN’T EXHIBIT IN 2009

Altman Siegel, San Francisco *
Ancient & Modern, London *
Galerie Anhava, Helsinki *
Armitage Gone! Dance, NY *
Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin
Buchmann Galerie, Berlin
Galleri Bo Bjerggaard, Copenhagen *
Christian Nagel, Berlin
COMA, Berlin *
carlier|gebauer, Berlin
David Castillo Gallery, Miami *
Lisa Cooley LES, NY *
Cortex Athletico, Bordeaux *
DCKT Contemporary, NY *