NEW YORK—Lower East Side fixture and contemporary art gallery Rivington Arms is shutting down in January, reports Artforum. Co-owners Mirabelle Marden and Melissa Bent have announced their decision to part ways after returning from the Frieze Art Fair in London this past month. The partners insisted that the closing is unrelated to the current state of the economy. “It had to do with where each of us wanted to take the gallery,” Bent said. “We are not ending because we are getting crushed out.”

The gallery, started in 2001 by the two Sarah Lawrence College alums, has helped launch the careers of young artists like New York–based art collective Lansing-Dreiden and the enfant terrible duo Dan Colen and Dash Snow. Works have gone on to be placed in prestigious shows, such as the Whitney Biennial, and with notable private collectors, like advertising mogul Charles Saatchi.

Although the business relationship between Marden and Bent has fizzled, the two have said they will “remain close friends.”