Olaf Breuning 2001 "Vikings." Photo: Nyehaus

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

New York City may be in the throes of a heat wave, but here come a trio of Chelsea galleries presenting SWELL, a well-timed surf-themed exhibition running July 1- August 6th.

Nyehaus, Friedrich Petzel Gallery and Metro Pictures will present the show, curated by Tim Nye and Jacqueline Miro.  Works by some seventy-five artists include Ed Ruscha, Robert Longo, Peter Alexander, John McCracken and Olaf Breuning.

The show is divided between the three galleries and each focuses on a different aspect of East and West Coast surf and beach culture from 1950-2010.  Works highlight artists and ideas of the Beat Generation, Assemblage, Light and Space, Finish Fetish, and early Pop Art movements.

Metro Pictures
519 West 24th Street
(212) 206-7100

Friedrich Petzel Gallery
537 West 22nd Street
(212) 680-9467

Nyehaus
358 West 20th Street, #2
(212) 366-4493

In December Art Market Views broke the news that art gallery Knoedler & Company’s townhouse 19 East 70th Street was on the market, tagged $59.5 million. The property is still for sale, with a price reduction.

The building is now available for $49.9 million, according to a listing here on Sotheby’s Realty’s website.

Still no news from the gallery regarding plans for a new Knoedler location. However the 57th Street Hammer Galleries is expected to relocate to a new venue by September. Hammer and Knoedler are owned by the same holding company. Michael Hammer is chairman and president of the holding company. Knoedler is currently showing Michael Goldberg’s 1962-1963 red paintings. The fall will feature a show by photographer Lynn Davis.

Not sure what this says about the art market… but Sotheby’s Realty’s three priciest real estate listings in Manhattan are all current or former art galleries. The top spot belongs to the Arader Galleries building on Madison Avenue, listed for sale for $72 million. This is not the first time the building has been on the market.

The second most expensive…

Robert Bernardi "Dylan's Candy Bar" 2010, oil on canvas. Image: Bernarducci Meisel Gallery

A 6,000 square foot space at 37 West 57th Street, formerly the home of Christian Haye’s defunct Project, has been leased by the Bernarducci Meisel Gallery. The gallery is known for its roster of realist artists including Roberto Bernardi, Hilo Chen and Mel Ramos.

For the past ten years, the Bernarducci Meisel gallery has occupied 3,000 square feet on the 6th floor of the same building.  The new space is on the 3rd floor, in a space previously occupied by the Project. The gallery will begin construction in July and aims to be open by Labor day, according to Frank Bernarducci.

Frank Bernarducci opened the gallery in 2000 with dealer Louis K. Meisel, who owns a Soho gallery also focusing on figurative and realist art.

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…

On of my favorite shows of the season is L & M Arts Tanguy/Calder: Between Surrealism and Abstraction spanning the 1930s to 1950s, and pairing tensile Calder’s sculptures and Tanguy’s errie paintings. The show is on view until June 12.

The exhibit so successfully conjures the mood and tempo of the era, I halfway expected Peggy Guggenheim to wander up the stairs and offer me a cocktail. Guggenheim herself was the show’s inspiration. In 1942 she wore one Calder earring and one Tanguy earring to the opening of her Art of This Century gallery.

Ping pong action at Independent fair, held at former Dia building. Floor by Jorge Pardo.

Zach Feuer and CRG Gallery are moving into the ground floor of the former Dia Art Foundation building on West 22nd Street. Feuer has leased half of the ground floor, upgrading from his current ground floor digs on West 24th Street which feature a prime location, but a convoluted layout. He will occupy 4,500 square feet. His ground floor neighbor will be CRG Gallery who is taking the other 4,500 square feet.

“I’m really excited to have a more workable space where the gallery will continue to grow over the years,” said Feuer. Both galleries will open in their new spaces in the fall.

The upper three floors will be used for art related events, according to sources. It is unclear who has assume control of the upper floors but it is said to be some sort of events planner. Elizabeth Dee, who is remaining in her current location, will rent space twice a year in the ex-Dia building for shows, according to a Dee Gallery representative. She will mount an Adrian Piper show there in the fall. Dee was the force behind 2009′s successful X…

Took these photos last week on the Bowery at future site of Sperone Westwater. Not sure when the gallery is slated to open, but there were a lot of guys in hard hats who looked quite busy. This is a Sir Norman Foster production.

Ganahl’s show ran March 18-April 25 at Alex Zachary, a new Upper East Side gallery located in what was an apartment last renovated when President Reagan was still in office.

Roberta Smith liked it and so did I. Videos and still photos captured the lives and homes of elderly Jewish emigres whose worlds were upended by WWII.

Allyson Vieira’s hulking industrial column-like forms gracefully fill the LES Gitlen Gallery. Ozymandias remains on view thru May 9.

Here’s one of the first mailings sent out by Pace Gallery after the split with Wildenstein, an announcement about an upcoming Joel Shapiro exhibit.

Still getting used to seeing “Pace Gallery,” in that retro font, without the fusty “Wildenstein” attached.