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 gooey paint. Her first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her generation – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work features a figure receiving a large disguise in an odd ceremony in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on the state of the US, 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, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, 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 recline in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, 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 a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct themes: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist picketed the painting daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But all her subsequent work now exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.