Slip House

STucked away behind an ornate Art Nouveau metal gate, a flower garden, and stained-glass panels, Slip House is a three-story, almost hobbit-like carriage house. Once the personal sanctuary and studio of designer Charles Kritsky—a close Basquiat confidant who crafted looks for Madonna and Billy Idol—stepping inside feels like gaining access to downtown’s best-kept secret.

With a picture window overlooking the street and garden, the ground floor is intimate and cozy. Head upstairs, past the galley kitchen, to a sun-drenched second-floor gallery anchored by its original fireplace. A spiral staircase leads up to the former third-floor bedroom. It gets wonderfully cramped during opening nights.

The art suits the rooms. Pastoral paintings lean into the ethereal. Photographs can be mysterious and moody. The space has hosted shows built around scene. Exhibition titles like Drift, Horizon, As If a Line, Vestiges, and Powder conjure a fleeting, otherworldly atmosphere, where materiality threatens to dissolve entirely.

This is art to meditate with, or simply linger beside with a morning coffee while daydreaming of another world.

Ingrid Lundgren, who previously worked at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise before opening Winter Street Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard, founded Slip House opened Slip House in 2025. The gallery takes its name from Coenties Slip, the downtown artists’ enclave (Agnes Martin, Ellsworth Kelly, and James Rosenquist) that grew around the old sail lofts in the 1950s. Slip House shares that interest in bringing artists together, and its domestic setting is part of the experience. The rooms, light, and garden shape how you move through the work — and how you emerge into the city afterward.