2025

Staying In, curated by Michael Yuan

Michael Yuan is a New York City-based art collector and curator dedicated to supporting emerging artists. He has guest lectured on the art market at the Guggenheim Museum and Stanford University, and has loaned works to institutions including the Whitney Museum, the Cantor Arts Center, and others. He has served on the YCC Acquisitions Committee at the Guggenheim and the Contemporary Council at the New Museum. Yuan holds a BA in Economics from Harvard University and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Deborah Brown, Thomas Cameron, Alex Gardner, Scott Kahn, Sung Hwa Kim, Yoora Lee, James Leong, Carlton Nell, Ernesto Renda, Dylan Rose Rheingold, Gail Spaien, Stipan Tadic, Xiao Wang, and Mikey Yates

June 24 - July 18, 2025

Opening Reception: Tuesday, June 24th  @ 6-8PM

39 White Street, Tribeca

1969 Gallery is pleased to announce Staying In, a group exhibition, curated by Michael Yuan. The exhibition explores interior spaces as both a physical environment and a psychological landscape through the works of Deborah Brown, Thomas Cameron, Alex Gardner, Scott Kahn, Sung Hwa Kim, Yoora Lee, James Leong, Carlton Nell, Ernesto Renda, Dylan Rose Rheingold, Gail Spaien, Stipan Tadic, Xiao Wang, and Mikey Yates. At the heart of the exhibition is the notion of interiority – the quality of inwardness. 

The exhibition considers how interiors, whether physical spaces or abstract representations of the mind, become sites of introspection and imaginative inquiry. 

While some artists depict bedrooms, living rooms, and domestic vignettes, others use abstraction to evoke psychological interiors, delving into the inquiry-driven spaces of the mind where boundaries dissolve and fantastical flights and possibilities emerge. By turning the gaze inwards, these works speak to the necessity of carving out space for interior life in a contemporary culture that prioritizes relentless visibility, productivity, and social performance. Staying In proposes that retreat and solitude are quiet forms of agency – ways of protecting one’s imaginative and emotional capacities. The show honors the relief of retreat, the pleasure of enclosure, and the generative potential of private moments. To stay in is not to withdraw entirely, but rather to reclaim space for inward reflection, suspending external expectations and allowing new ways of seeing ourselves and the world.