Dana Schutz Review: An Orgy of Gloop from the Artist Who Outraged NYC

The American painter cakes her paintings in heavy layers of gooey paint. This first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her material, but some big messages are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s enough here to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece shows a group of figures trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their path. A different work presents a person receiving a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – while in other works a pair console each other in a landscape filled with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. 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 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. A protester demonstrated against the painting each day, and some called for it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.