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

The American painter cakes her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her first proper London show 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 – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their path. A different work features a person given a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in gilded seats – whereas in other works a pair console each other in a scene filled with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-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 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 depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi 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 own gain. An activist demonstrated against the painting each day, and others demanded it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the biennial. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.