Chinese-born, New York-based artist Pixy Liao’s Experimental Relationship (2007–) explores gender and relationship dynamics as well as cross-cultural love and hate through a series of wildly staged photographs, often featuring herself and her younger Japanese partner, Moro.
Liao grew up with China’s early conservative conditioning of the expectation that women, as the vulnerable sex, are to find an older, “mature” male partner, but Liao reframes this patriarchal stereotype by portraying herself in the dominant role. Works range from tender, intimate moments to submissive, humorous, almost bizarre, arrangements.
Pixy Liao, How to build a relationship with layered meanings, 2008, C-type print. Courtesy the artist and Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne
Centre for Contemporary Photography
21 April to 9 July 2023
Melbourne
