The Artist Dana Schutz Exhibition Overview: An Orgy of Gloop from the Painter Who Outraged NYC

Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. This inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her era – is focused on surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level art-nerd stuff. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece depicts a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. In another presents a person given a huge mask in some bizarre ceremony in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as observation on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – while in additional pieces a couple console each other in a scene strewn with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. A protester demonstrated against the painting each day, and some demanded it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.