NEW YORK—Last week we learned that two established galleries—Oliver Kamm/5BE in New York and Emily Tsingou Gallery in London—are shutting their doors. Although the galleries are based on two different continents, the contemporary art world is small enough that, together, their impending closures have set off a flurry of speculation among analysts and insiders, some of whom have spoken portentously of the supposedly looming “market correction.”

“You'd have to have your head in the sand to say it’s not happening,” Robert Goff, owner of Goff + Rosenthal gallery in New York’s Chelsea district, wrote on Conde Nast’s Portfolio.com blog December 9, after visiting Miami that week for Art Basel and hearing that Kamm, also based in Chelsea, is shutting down. The art industry newsletter Baer Faxt had broken the news about Tsingou the day before.

This week, ARTINFO caught up with Tsingou and Kamm to hear what they had to say. It’s true, both said, that they are closing their galleries, but neither is leaving the art world. Tsingou is “refocusing the direction” of her business: She's shifting her attention to the secondary market after a decade representing artists, relocating her office within London, and changing her company’s name to Emily Tsingou Fine Art. Kamm is also moving; he's switching spaces with the neighboring ATM Gallery, and plans to convert the new digs into an alternative art space where he will curate exhibitions but will not represent artists. The new endeavor (he hasn’t decided on a name) is scheduled to premiere in early 2008.

While Tsingou didn’t respond to our questions about whether the market was a factor in her decision, Kamm said he is closing foremost because “I was ready for a change, personally.” But he also added, “I don’t want to manage artists and manage careers, just to barely break even, especially after five years of critical success. It’s draining. I love what I do, but I’d rather go out on top and not owe anybody any money. We’ve been barely breaking even over the past five years, even in a booming market. If there is any sort of correction, if people get at all hesitant, I won’t make money. It is going to make it very hard for [many] galleries.”

Whether that will happen anytime soon is anyone’s guess. “The market seems to be doing fine,” Kamm said, adding that he has seen a proliferation of galleries since he started Oliver Kamm/5BE, which was initially operated out of his apartment, in 2002. “Will it stay that way forever? It can’t.”