The Artist Dana Schutz Review: An Orgy of Thick Paint from the Painter Who Shocked New York

Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in thick gobs of gooey paint. Her inaugural London exhibition is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her material, but some big messages are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her era – is focused on texture, application, 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 enough here to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are full of enormous one-eyed beings 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 receiving a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as observation on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

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 fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green recline in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a couple comfort one another in a landscape filled with corpses, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies naked, desolate and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester demonstrated against the painting each day, and some called for it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.