The Artist Dana Schutz Exhibition Overview: An Orgy of Thick Paint from the Painter Who Shocked New York

The American painter cakes her canvases in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. A different work presents a person given a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as observation on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, filled with references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the body of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the painting daily, and some called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.