Over the holiday, Georgina Adam had a recap of the year’s major art market events that concluded with this observation that may end up being far more important than any of the auction house moves. Galleries continue to transform themselves from local institutions to globe-spanning operations. Once it was only the mighty Gagosian but today more and more significant gallerists have multiple locations on more than one continent. Consequently, local tastemakers are quietly rolling up their operations:

Paris’s Emmanuel Perrotin opened a New York outlet, adding to an operation that includes Hong Kong and three galleries in Paris. Marian Goodman is opening in London next year: Thaddaeus Ropac will inaugurate a new space in 2014 at an as-yet-undisclosed location – but not in Europe. At the same time, a number of midsized dealers closed, squeezed between the big boys and the smaller, slimmer emerging galleries. D’Amelio Terras in New York, Jérôme de Noirmont in Paris and Martin Klosterfeld in Berlin all closed. And some other Berlin galleries were thought to be in the red.

The Art Market: The beginning of a new world order for sales? (Financial Times)