elizabeth murray

Catskill Art Space (CAS), in collaboration with the Elizabeth Murray Estate, Trisha Brown Dance Company, and Works & Process, will present a special residency devoted to PRESENT TENSE (2003), the landmark collaboration between choreographer Trisha Brown and artist Elizabeth Murray. This Works & Process residency at Catskill Art Space, will take place October 6–10, culminating in a free public sharing on Saturday, October 10 at 4PM at 48 Main Street, Livingston Manor, NY.

Coinciding with the residency, Catskill Art Space will present a selection of Elizabeth Murray’s works on paper that served as studies for the backdrop she created for PRESENT TENSE. The exhibition will be on view in the second-floor River Gallery, October 3 through December 27, 2026, offering audiences a rare opportunity to encounter Murray’s visual thinking alongside the choreography it helped shape.

The presentation illuminates the collaborative nature of PRESENT TENSE: Murray’s drawings and studies reveal the development of the forms that ultimately occupied the stage, while the live rehearsal and performance allow those forms to be understood in relation to Brown’s constantly shifting bodies and spatial structures. Together, the exhibition and residency offer a multidimensional portrait of two artists whose practices were grounded in movement, experimentation, scale, and an instinctive refusal of conventional boundaries between disciplines.

Under the guidance and stewardship of Works & Process, the presentation is conceived in the spirit of institutional collaboration, bringing together dance, visual art, and archival practice in a shared exploration of a historic artistic partnership. Following its presentation at Catskill Art Space, the project will travel to Hudson Hall in Hudson, New York, where the Murray works on paper will be on view February 2–March 14, 2027.

About the Artist

Elizabeth Murray (1940–2007) was one of the most influential American artists of her generation. Known for her exuberant paintings and drawings, Murray challenged the boundaries of the traditional picture plane through animated forms, unusual shapes, and a visual language that drew equally from abstraction, cartooning, and everyday experience.