The Artist Dana Schutz Review: An Orgy of Thick Paint from the Artist Who Outraged NYC

Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. This first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one shows a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their path. In another features a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that support them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a scene strewn with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character 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.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the painting each day, and some called for it to be removed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.