The American painter smothers her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. This inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.
Schutz's Approach
Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her generation – is focused on surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.
Works in the First Gallery
The works in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one shows a group of figures trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. In another features a figure receiving a huge mask in an odd ceremony before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.
An Embrace by the artist.
Changing Themes
In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in golden chairs – while in other works a pair comfort one another in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed.
Inspirations and References
This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in allusions. There’s 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, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.
A Model by Dana Schutz.
Meaning and Stories
Art this complex, intricate and symbolic invites to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.
Controversy and Impact
And Schutz should know about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the work daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful artwork.
Legacy and Current Work
This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the highest level.
