NEW YORK  - In spite of the supposedly difficult times, several dealers in NY are about to open new branches. This first one is Barbara Gladstone who, according to The Bear Faxt, will occupy the warehouse in Long Island City that was known as Deitch Studios. The news isn’t surprising. The building, which hosted ambitious projects by Assume Vivid Astro Focus and Josh Smith among others, is in the same complex as the studio of Gladstone’s protégé Matthew Barney. In fact, to keep it “in the family,” the inaugural show of Deitch Studios was “Wanderlust,” a 3D public screening of a video conceived by Encyclopedia Pictura for singer and composer Björk — who is also Barney’s wife. The space will probably serve more as a showroom than a real exhibition space.

Gladstone is not alone: for the NY gallery weekend (May 7-10) Gavin Brown opened a triple show with an intervention by Martin Creed on the floor of his historical space, which continues in the adjacent space with a mechanism that opens and closes a black curtain that is paired with a video featuring an erect penis. Finally, Gavin Brown has (temporarily?) occupied a third space on the same block, right next to the second one on 601 Washington Street, where he reinstalled Jonathan Horowitz’s widely acclaimed 2002 exhibition “Go Vegan!”, which was originally presented at Greene Naftali.

Coming from Gavin Brown’s school is Alex Zachary, who recently opened a gallery in a quite odd ’80s interior designed apartment on 77th street a few steps from Leo Castelli and Michael Werner. A long time director at GBE, Zachary prepared his first two shows (Ken Okiishi and Rainer Ganahl) while still working part time at the gallery. He definitely left the mother ship for his third show (Darren Bader, currently on view) and his lease at the space will last at least for two years.

Following Gavin Brown and Barbara Gladstone, who both have new galleries, comes Marianne Boesky. The difference with Boesky is that the new space she just opened is located on the Upper East Side, though it consequently has an attitude that could be defined as ‘complementary’ to her gallery located in Chelsea. By the way, on the top floor of the fancy building her Chelsea space occupies, Boesky actually keeps her apartment. While she will continue to produce shows with contemporary artists that benefit from the white cube (the Hans Op De Beeck show currently on view is astonishing), the new space – located in a townhouse at 118 E. 64 Street – is a domestic one that will mostly function as a showroom for secondary market and old masters such as artists like Bonnard, Calder, Léger, Pollock and Stella, all of whom are included in the exhibition currently on view (curated by art advisor Todd Levin). In fact Boesky inaugurated the space last March with some works by Lucio Fontana. Actually, during the last edition of Art | Basel, Boesky was spotted at the booth of Galleria Dello Scudo (Fontana’s main dealer), passionately speaking to the gallery staff about her enthusiasm for Italian art, which for her is almost like a fetish.

Speaking of disciples, Jeffrey Deitch factotum Kathy Grayson, together with her former Deitch Projects colleagues Meghan Coleman and Suzanne Geiss, will be opening her own operation under the quite hilarious name of “The Hole,” which came to their mind after all the articles about Jeffrey Deitch closing the gallery to take the directorship at MOCA Los Angeles that talked about “the hole in the downtown community” or  “the hole in the art world.”

Perhaps tired of his old space on 24th Street, Zach Feuer — who for this reason probably lost his goldmine Jules de Balincourt, since he did a show at Jeffrey Deich’s old space on Wooster — will relocate his gallery on the ground floor of the building that was in the past occupied by DIA. It was then temporarily used by Elizabeth Dee’s one-year Kunsthalle X-initiative and then again by a new invention of Dee –– Independent, a mix between a fair and an exhibition. CRG Gallery will also move to that same building. Sooner or later The Pace Gallery will be obliged to move from its space on 22nd (in front of the aforementioned building), which is a property of DIA. It seems that with new director Philippe Vergne, DIA is planning to use that portion of the street (the offices are on the same side of the street) to build a new exhibition space on several floors, coming back to Chelsea after Michael Govan closed that same space which has become known as the Dia Building, and that is now going to host Feuer, CRG and Independent again during the Armory.

Another dealer who is about to move is Stefania Bortolami. The building she occupied on 25th Street, owned by the husband of her former partner Amalia Dayan, has been sold and therefore Bortolami has now found a new space on 20th street with which will inaugurate the gallery’s new season in September 2010. After the adventure in the out-of-sight space on 123 E 12th Street (Frank Stella’s former studio), Taxter & Spengemann decided to come back to Chelsea, probably due to the lack of visibility on account of the odd (though magnificent) location they decided to take. They will re-open in September 2010 at 459 West 18th Street. Finally, Angela Westwater and Gianenzo Sperone will open the next season in a new massive building designed by Foster + Partners, located at 257 Bowery, a few steps away from the not so much bigger New Museum. Apparently, Sperone secured the funds for the new building through the auction sale of a piece by Roy Lichtenstein. For its inaugural exhibition, between 22 September and 6 November, 2010, the gallery will exhibit new paintings by Guillermo Kuitca.

The last news regards the West Coast aficionado Matthew Marks. According to the gallery, Los Angeles associate Victoria Cuthbert Quinn Marks is planning to open a gallery in Los Angeles, in West Hollywood on North Orange Grove Avenue, right off Santa Monica Boulevard to be exact, in about a year.