Dana Schutz Exhibition Overview: A Feast of Gloop from the Painter Who Shocked NYC

Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her first proper London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her medium, but some big messages 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 all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their path. A different work presents a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony in front of a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of 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 sit back in gilded seats – whereas in other works a pair console each other in a scene strewn with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in allusions. 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 large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

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 narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a young African-American who was lynched by racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the work daily, and others demanded it to be removed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.