Dana Schutz Exhibition Overview: A Feast of Thick Paint from the Artist Who Outraged NYC

Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. This inaugural London show is a messy, exuberant tribute of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece shows a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work presents a figure receiving a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a man in green recline in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a couple console each other in a landscape filled with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the painting daily, and some called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a period that featured infighting 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 upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.