These works wryly examine the power dynamics between artist and muse, prod at conservative gender roles, and document the evolution of their relationship.

Photographer and her muse I, 2014
Pixy Liao
Courtesy of the artist. © Pixy Liao
Pixy (born 1979 in Shanghai, China), an artist working in photography, installation, and performance, met Japanese-born artist and musician Moro in 2006 when both were international students in Memphis, Tennessee. Their creative partnership has grown and evolved over the years to include many projects including their music group, PIMO, which has released six albums to date.
Pixy began the photographic series, known as Experimental Relationship, shortly after she and Moro met, with many of the works playfully referencing art history, film, music, and other artifacts of popular culture. She plans to continue it so long as they remain together.

How to build a relationship with layered meanings, 2008
Pixy Liao
Courtesy of the artist. © Pixy Liao
Presenting approximately 45 works that span the duration of this ongoing series, Pixy Liao: Relationship Material—the artist’s first exhibition in Chicago—celebrates the couple’s many ways of being and working together. As the title suggests, the show frames Pixy’s relationship with Moro as artistic material in itself, showing how this manifests not only in photographs but also in sculptures, videos, and PIMO. Through these works, Pixy chronicles and enacts efforts to “reach a new equilibrium” in a partnership that is both artistic and romantic, examining questions of fantasy, desire, and control.
Pixy Liao: Relationship Material is curated by Yechen Zhao, assistant curator, Photography and Media.