Dana Schutz Review: An Orgy of Thick Paint from the Artist Who Outraged New York

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

Schutz's Approach

Her method – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, metaphorical imagery that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. One piece shows a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their wake. A different work presents a figure receiving a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the crowds that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, desolate and powerless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, filled with references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work 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.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct themes: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – 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 the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the painting each day, and others demanded it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.