Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. This inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.
Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is focused on surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that truly drives the artworks resonate.
These pieces in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their path. A different work features a person given a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. 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.
The Kiss by Dana Schutz.
In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a couple console each other in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, forlorn and powerless in bed.
This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, filled with references. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.
The Example by Dana Schutz.
Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the ruling class, and the public that they provoke.
And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the painting daily, and others demanded it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.
This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.
Elara is a passionate writer and photographer who shares insights on creativity and mindful living through engaging storytelling.
