Suzanne Muchnic provides a roadmap to the changing Los Angeles gallery scene in the LA Times. She points out that 20 galleries have closed because of the decline in art sales, including “Ann Helwing, Lizabeth Oliveria and D.E.N. in Culver City; and Mary Goldman, Black Dragon, the Project and Mesler & Hug.” There’s more:

“It has been a tough time,” says George Stern, a board member of the Art Dealers Assn. of California. “Clients sense that it’s a buyer’s market and rightly so. But I’m optimistic. Professional dealers who have been around for a long time seem to be weathering through this.”

Some of them in expansive new digs. Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills, a branch of a Blue Chip empire based in New York, is expanding its pristine space on Camden Drive. In a project led by Michael Palladino of Richard Meier’s New York architecture firm, the gallery will double its size, to 11,600 square feet, expected to open in 2010.

Blum & Poe, a high end contemporary showcase that sparked Culver City’s gallery boom in 2003, is gearing up for a major transformation in a two-story, 21,000-square-foot hulk of a building across La Cienega Boulevard from its current location. It’s scheduled to open Oct. 2.

Among other developments in Culver City, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is closing its space and moving four blocks west on Washington Boulevard to a much bigger building with a soaring ceiling. Cherry and Martin has doubled its size and increased its visibility at a new location that opened in April. Another Culver City newcomer, Roberts & Tilton, left its mid-Wilshire home for a bigger one, allowing the adjacent Acme gallery to grow.

L&M Arts, a major New York gallery, is also opening an outpost in Los Angeles, expected to open next year.

LA’s Galleries Reframe the Recession (LA Times)