Dana Schutz Review: An Orgy of Thick Paint from the Painter Who Shocked New York
The American painter cakes her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.
The Artist's Technique
Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is focused on surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the artworks resonate.
Works in the First Gallery
The works in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece shows a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and creating a path of debris in their wake. In another features a person given a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.
An Embrace by Dana Schutz.
Shift in Focus
In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the crowds that follow them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs – whereas in other works a couple console each other in a landscape filled with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, forlorn and powerless in a bed.
Inspirations and References
This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.
The Example by the exhibitor.
Meaning and Stories
Painting this dense, 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 crowds that they bait.
Controversy and Impact
And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. A protester demonstrated against the painting each day, and others demanded it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world increasingly polarized, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.
Aftermath and Recent Art
It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.
