The Artist Dana Schutz Exhibition Overview: An Orgy of Thick Paint from the Painter Who Shocked New York
Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. This first proper London show is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.
The Artist's Technique
Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her era – is focused on surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that truly drives the artworks resonate.
Initial Exhibition Pieces
These pieces in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their wake. In another features a person receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony 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 furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to rubbish.
An Embrace by Dana Schutz.
Changing Themes
In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus 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 cardinal and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and helpless in bed.
Inspirations and References
This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in references. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.
The Example by Dana Schutz.
Meaning and Stories
Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.
The 2017 Scandal
And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. A protester demonstrated against the painting daily, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.
Aftermath and Recent Art
This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.