Dana Schutz Exhibition Overview: An Orgy of Gloop from the Artist Who Shocked NYC

Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. Her first proper London show is a messy, exuberant tribute of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important painters of her era – is focused on surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a while. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece depicts a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their wake. A different work presents a person given a large disguise in an odd ceremony before a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs – while in other works a couple comfort one another in a scene strewn with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the public that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester picketed the painting each day, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the highest level.