The two plan to take a year off, then return to the art scene as consultants.
"We want more time to work with museums and traveling shows and to work one-on-one with collectors," Nielsen says. The gallery's lease is up, and after years of mounting exhibits every five weeks, Nielsen is ready for something new. "When you're doing something well and you feel yourself changing, you have to change with it," she says.
Kathleen O'Hara, co-owner with Caroline Taggart of OH+T Gallery on Harrison Avenue, says the economic crisis is the sole reason for the eight-year-old gallery's closure. Its last day is June 20.
"Really, the last year has been incredibly bad," says O'Hara. "We can't afford to keep the place open if we don't sell anything." She plans to partner with Beth Kantrowitz, formerly of Allston Skirt, which closed a year ago, to run alternative curatorial projects.
Amnon Goldman, owner of Mercury Gallery, says the economy also played into his decision to close the venue at 8 Newbury St. He says he hopes to reopen in the fall in a smaller space. "I want to stay in the first block of Newbury Street, but somewhere more contained," he says.
Collected images
Michael Oatman's collages at Miller Block Gallery astonish with their sheer volume, variety of images, dramatic shifts in scale, and mind-blowing detail. Oatman cuts images from books and puts them together to create vast, surreal narratives.
The centerpiece of this show, titled after writer John McPhee's geohistorical collection "Annals of the Former World," is a 20-foot-long collage set at the beach, straddling past and future. It's alarmist yet comical and filled with narrative diversions, such as a crocodile with a camera in its maw.
Oatman specializes in creating unnerving but funny scenes that look as if they come out of B movies. In "Nutrition Error (Early Bird)," a huge, glowing pink worm crawls through a covered bridge in the blue dusk. "Man Falls to His Life" depicts objects pouring through the sky - a carton of cigarettes, a flashlight - against a cheerful background of a modernist building in a 1960s-era town. The man of the title lies in his red pajamas on the pavement; his life seems to be raining down upon him.
Artful dialogue
