May 2 - June 14, 2009
In 1973, Ana Mendieta invited unsuspecting visitors to her apartment. Without having been warned, they witnessed a horrific (albeit confusing) scene: Mendieta was bent over and tied to a table with her underwear at her ankles, blood stains on her legs and broken dishes all over the floor. Protesting the recent attacks against women that were occurring on campus at the University of Iowa, Mendieta’s performance Rape Piece is a poignant reminder that the distinctions between private and public, inside and outside, remain somewhat unclear.
Using this performance as a point of departure, the group exhibition Can’t Rape the Willing not only poses some of the same questions that Mendieta considered but, more deliberately, it diverts by exposing what happens behind closed doors between consenting adults. By challenging rampant taboos about sexual fantasies, intimacy and deviant behavior, the artists in the exhibition are invited to delve into unrestrained—and unapologetic—perverse territory.
Theo Adams
Arlen Austin
Cara Benedetto
Michael Bilsborough
Brendan Carney
Azul Ceballos
Tara DeLong
Chloe Dzubilo
Juan Pablo Echeverri
Kathryn Garcia
Danielle Levitt
Richard Lidinsky
Megan Lindeman
Lovett/Codagnone
Quinn Luke
Hector Madera Gonzalez
Nadja Verena Marcin
Elizabeth Neel
Marc Robinson
Julika Rudelius
Georgia Sagri
Dean Sameshima
Michael Sharkey
Dena Yago