Intimacy as Theoretical Framework at Iowa
Installation view of Conduct, featuring Dana DeGiulio and Hunter Foster. Photo by Chris White. Courtesy of Iowa.
In the two-person show Conduct, artists Dana DeGiulio and Hunter Foster prioritize and explore communities and connections, underscoring the inherent intimacy of the bedroom exhibition space of up-and-coming apartment gallery Iowa. Gallerist Antonia Machado Oliver started Iowa in 2023 in her previous apartment in nearby Bed Stuy, executing an exciting and young program featuring artists concerned with the personal, tactile, and material, such as Ang Ziqi Zhang, Madeline Casteel, and Ruby Jackson. After a brief moving hiatus, Iowa has returned, now in Crown Heights.
Conduct is the debut exhibition in the gallery’s new space and perfectly exemplifies Iowa’s ethos of “intimacy as theoretical framework,” as described by Machado Oliver. Much of the show centers interconnectedness and personal encounters, foregrounding the ways in which people live and work together in systems, both interpersonally and in the art world. Three subtle drawings of human figures by Foster are collected in the space; each likeness is taken from a neoclassical work in the collection of the Met, copied here on tracing paper and wheat-pasted onto the walls. The paper is bubbled and wrinkled, not melding into the wall but delicately resting just on the surface, transforming the sturdy marble of the original statues into something fragile. A fourth figure of a dog lays patiently by the foot of the door, welcoming and waiting.
Installation view of Conduct, the work of Hunter Foster. Graphite on tracing paper, wheat-paste, enamel on yardstick. Photo by Chris White. Courtesy of Iowa.
Stretching in a row are seven drawings from DeGiulio’s 2024 series zephyr, each tenderly affixed to the wall with cut-up bandaids. The works first appear abstract and gestural in peachy smudges with swipes of red, black, and blue. After stepping back and squinting, Mickey Mouse emerges in his wizard’s robe and hat from the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a short in the movie Fantasia (1940). In the film, a wizened sorcerer turns his back on pupil Mickey Mouse only to find absolute chaos upon his return. DeGiulio, who taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 2008 to 2023, was Foster’s professor during his BFA. Though Mickey Mouse earns the ire of his mentor, Conduct evidences the sometimes magical exchange between student and teacher. The exhibition is a conversation yielding from this kind of supportive and reparative relationship, accentuated by DeGiulio’s bandaids.
Dana DeGiulio, zephyr (2024). One of seven drawings, cray-pas on paper, mounted with cut bandages. 10 x 7 in. Photo by Chris White. Courtesy of Iowa.
Tutelage is complicated in another work, Realism for the Cause of Future Revolution (2014), a rogue performance by DeGiulio presented as stacks of still photographs. The artist traverses MoMA, dressed in a chintzy Statue of Liberty costume with Mickey Mouse gloves. She intently peers at a Lawrence Weiner installation and an Andrew Wyeth painting, all while holding a cartoonish torch. Here, the relationship of teacher to student is transposed as that of institution to artist. DeGiulio mimes learning from the art historical canon—an inevitable facet of today’s arts education—but maintains distance and criticality by referencing Mickey Mouse’s rambunctious example.
The gallery adds further complexity to the work. The one-bedroom space has two windows in the corner, on the sills of which rest piles of photos of the performance, to be rifled through. This individualizes the viewing experience and breaks away from a fixed perspective. Each visitor necessarily sees the photos in varying orders in picking them up and leafing through them, if they choose to do so at all. The photos are viewed in front of the windows while the visitor gazes out into the mostly residential community below, immediately contextualizing the exhibition not only within the larger art world and museum space of the performance, but also in Iowa’s present corner of Crown Heights. Institutions are implicated, though they seem far away from the vantage point of the domestic window.
Dana DeGiulio, Realism for the Cause of Future Revolution (2014). Action performed without permission at MoMA. Original video shot by Michaela Murphy. Stills selected and printed in 2024 by Hunter Foster, Dana DeGiulio, and Iowa. Installation photo by Chris White. Courtesy of Iowa.
This multifaceted conversation and questioning is essential to Iowa. Machado Oliver describes the gallery as “a way to gather people,” a goal that is highlighted by the space itself. Unlike a typical white cube (though the walls at Iowa are indeed white), the apartment gallery can never disguise or obscure how art makes contact with people. “Part of what I like about running my own space is hosting,” she continues. “Welcoming people and enabling this kind of dialogue are really important to me. These happen in a very different way within a home.”
On the roof, there is a secret work: DeGiulio, Foster, and Machado Oliver’s astrological constellations in silver star stickers, subtly sparkling on the gray tarred surface. Though most visitors will probably never see them, they are a testament to the personal intimacies held within.
Conduct is on view at Iowa through November 10, 2024. There will be a closing conversation between the artists from 4pm to 5pm on the final day.
