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

Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. This inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration 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 one of the most important painters of her era – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s enough here to keep you going for a while. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece shows a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their path. In another presents a person given a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the crowds 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 gilded seats – while in other works a couple comfort one another in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies naked, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed 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 that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the work daily, and others called for it to be removed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. 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 more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.