Join Us for Our Fabulous Fall Exhibition Cycle

Please join us for the opening reception to celebrate a pair of one-person exhibitions by leading international contemporary photographers, Tanya Marcuse and Pixy Liao. These two very different artists explore key aspects of modern culture: Tanya Marcuse’s meticulously constructed photographic tableaux weave together lush beauty and natural decay to reflect allegorically on climate change and the current environmental crisis, while Pixy Liao’s wry photographs and videos highlight personal intimacy, partnership, and gender dynamics. Both artists have strong ties to upstate New York: Tanya Marcuse as a long-time teacher at Bard College and a participant in CPW’s Upstate Photography Biennial, and Pixy Liao as a 2010 artist in residence at CPW’s well-known Woodstock AIR program. CPW will host public programs and talks throughout the season. 

In her photographic series “Woven” (2015 - 2020), photographer Tanya Marcuse reflects on the fragility of the natural world and the environmental crisis. This exhibition provides a unique opportunity to view eight key images of this important series. Her meticulously constructed ecologies reflect on a world in which abundance is inseparable from precarity and loss and tips into plunder, where flourishing nature and environmental ruin coexist.

In addition to “Woven,” Marcuse will debut her newest series, “Deer,” a coda to “Woven.” The CPW exhibition will feature one large-format image, a smaller fifteen-print sequence, and Marcuse’s extraordinary new eleven-minute film, made in partnership with Ben Stechshulte and exhibited for the first time. Marcuse’s new book, Deer (Roman Nvmerals and MW Editions, October, 2026), with an essay by David Campany, will be available for purchase online and in person at CPW.

Pixy Liao: Relationship Material—originally organized by the Art Institute of Chicago—brings together approximately 45 color photographs, soft sculptures, and music videos from Chinese-American artist Pixy Liao's collaboration with her partner, artist and musician Moro. Liao's ongoing series of staged self-portraits playfully examine intimacy, identity, and gender roles. Through humor, performance, and carefully constructed compositions, Liao challenges power dynamics in straight romantic relationships, conventional representations of romantic and creative partnerships, and the relationship between artist and muse. The exhibition frames Liao and Moro's relationship as artistic material, showing how a partnership can become a site of experimentation and creative exchange.

Opening alongside these two exhibitions is Closeness: A Phocus Exhibition, in the CPW Community Gallery. Closeness presents student work by Phocus, the photography club and community darkroom of Vassar College. In exploring the theme of “closeness,” the students question how the presence of a camera changes the nature of a moment, and how proximity—both to and between subjects—shapes their creative processes and image production.

Banner image: Tanya Marcuse