Sitting Room

Sitting Room is one of a handful of storefronts gathered around Betty, the restaurant and neighborhood hangout on the eastern end of Henry Street. The gallery spans two levels and two generations.

The street-level space still has an old bar, making it feel like somewhere you might meet a friend for coffee or a drink. Here, the shows have cool-uncle energy, pulling from graffiti, fashion, skateboarding, music, and the people who have shaped downtown life for decades.

Downstairs, the gallery often hosts group shows that open onto a younger world: the media they consume, the games they play, and the places they party. The mood can be cinematic and full of bruised blues, purples, and greens, as if these images, objects, and little manifestations of desire could actually be hurt by what you say about them.

Lineage and dream life. At Sitting Room, the two instincts meet: one rooted in downtown social history, the other in the way scenes that form online spill into real rooms.

Shahnti O’Neill founded Sitting Room in 2023. David Welch of ProblemChild Advisory directs. O’Neill has been running art-focused, scene-first spaces like Great Jones Space since 2013. Welch brings a post-internet version of that instinct: ProblemChild Advisory began as an Instagram-based project built around reposting, sampling, and connecting emerging artists before it started putting on shows IRL.