Jori Finkel doesn’t think Palo Alto needs Contemporary art galleries given its proximity to San Francisco, but Pace’s Marc Glimcher does. He explains with these quotes in Finkel’s NYTimes piece announcing the opening of the Palo Alto space which really seems to be about having a showroom:

“It was time to fish or cut bait,” said Marc Glimcher, president of Pace worldwide, which has branches in New York, London, Hong Kong and Beijing. “You can’t do a pop-up forever,” he said.

He said the choice of Palo Alto is “not about that whole internationalist plan of opening your gallery in every major city, which we certainly have been part of,” but about “trying to do something we don’t already do and reach a new community that is not being served right now.” […]

The new gallery will also have a viewing room to bring in “whatever great material we get from our estates — the Rothko estate, Calder estate, Kenneth Noland estate,” he said. “It’s easier for art to get in a plane and go to collectors than for them to get in a plane and go the art.”

A New Home for Pace Gallery in Palo Alto (The New York Times)