🔗 Share this article

Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. This inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her generation – is focused on surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery 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 roaring mobs. One piece depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another presents a figure given a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to interpret these as social commentary, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a scene filled with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist picketed the work each day, and others demanded it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the biennial. This marked the height of the recent social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.