Some would say that David Zwirner’s rapid gallery expansion is Gagosian envy. Others would simply call it a way to serve better a growing roster of artists, which includes Doug Wheeler, Marlene Dumas, Jason Rhoades and Neo Rauch.
Mr. Zwirner is poised to open a second space in New York, just a block from his West 19th Street gallery in Chelsea. And by October he will have a major presence in London. “I have many careers to worry about,” Mr. Zwirner said.
The superdealer Larry Gagosian runs 11 galleries around the world, and Mr. Zwirner said that “Larry has a global model that seems to work.”
In Chelsea, Mr. Zwirner is building a gallery at 537 West 20th Street on the site of what was a three-story parking garage. Annabelle Selldorf, the New York architect, is designing the building, which will have about 30,000 square feet on five floors, with natural light. It will include a 6,000-square-foot column-free space with 18-foot-high ceilings.
If all goes as planned, this second Chelsea gallery will open in November with an exhibition of work from two of the artist estates Mr. Zwirner represents: Dan Flavin’s and Donald Judd’s.
“With this Minimalist art we need better space to show the material,” Mr. Zwirner said. The London gallery, in an 18th-century Georgian town house at 24 Grafton Street, in the heart of Mayfair, will be his first overseas. Ms. Selldorf will design that space too, which will open with new works by Luc Tuymans.
By opening in London, Mr. Zwirner is joining a growing group of New York galleries there. Last month Eykyn Maclean opened a space on St. George Street; Pace is soon to announce a gallery location there; and Michael Werner Gallery, which already has spaces in New York and Berlin, has just signed a lease on a space on Upper Brook Street in Mayfair.
“One has to accept the fact that the art world is international,” said Gordon VeneKlasen, a partner at Michael Werner. “There are collectors from all over the world who come to London but don’t go to New York.”