News both bad and good from galleries around the globe continues to roll in during difficult economic times. In New York, Brooklyn staple McCaig-Welles Gallery has announced it is closing. Owner Melissa McCaig-Welles wrote in an e-mail that the decision was due to the recession along with other factors, namely her move to San Francisco and the birth of her second child.

"In 2008, my relocation to San Francisco brought about new opportunities for McCaig-Welles Gallery, but also unforeseen challenges," she wrote. "Experimental and satellite project spaces were made possible through new gallery partnerships, allowing our artists to exhibit bi-coastally. As we dedicated ourselves to expanding and developing these programs ... an impending economic crisis followed our coattails, surmounted by devastating global financial reverberations."

McCaig-Welles added that although the Brooklyn space will be shuttered, she plans to continue working with artists on the West Coast and will announce several projects in the coming months.

At the same time, both London and Paris are seeing the opening of new spaces. In London, Steve Dickson has transformed his World Ends Bookshop in Chelsea into World Ends Contemporary, a gallery specializing in photography. World Ends opened earlier this month with a show of work by Swiss artist Yann Gross and Hungarian artist Gábor Ösz that runs through August 15.

In Paris, Steinitz Gallery, which specializes in high-end antiques, is expanding into a second location at 77 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. The new gallery comprises roughly 700 square meters of exhibition space spread over four floors. It will host thematic exhibitions and invite decorators to periodically take over and redesign the interior. Steinitz will maintain its current location at 9 rue du Cirque.

Finally, the Los Angeles Times offered a rundown this weekend of local galleries expanding amid the recession. On the roster are the previously reported redesign of Gagosian Gallery's Beverly Hills space by Richard Meier; Blum & Poe's transfer across the street from its existing location into a two-story, 21,000-square-foot building; Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects' closure of its current location and move four blocks west, into a bigger building; and the opening of a Los Angeles outpost of the New York–based L&M Arts sometime next year.