Dana Schutz Exhibition Overview: An Orgy of Gloop from the Artist Who Shocked NYC

The American painter cakes her canvases in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London show is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her era – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, real high-level art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their path. In another features a person given a huge mask in an odd ceremony before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the masses that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a scene filled with corpses, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies naked, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. A protester picketed the work each day, and others called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.