Dana Schutz Exhibition Overview: An Orgy of Gloop from the Painter Who Outraged NYC

Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. Her first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her era – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another features a figure receiving a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the masses that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her painting a titled piece – a partly abstract representation 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 exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the painting each day, and some demanded it to be removed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world increasingly polarized, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But all her subsequent work now exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.