Dana Schutz Exhibition Overview: A Feast of Thick Paint from the Painter Who Shocked New York
Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. This inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.
The Artist's Technique
Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her era – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the artworks resonate.
Works in the First Gallery
These pieces in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work presents a person given a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.
An Embrace by Dana Schutz.
Changing Themes
In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the crowds that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed.
Inspirations and References
This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in references. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs 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 SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.
The Example by the exhibitor.
Interpretation and Narratives
Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.
Controversy and Impact
And Schutz should know about such dynamics. In 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the work daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the event. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world 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 came out 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 art at the highest level.
