The American painter smothers her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. This inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.
Schutz's Approach
Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced 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 her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.
Initial Exhibition Pieces
These pieces in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of trash in their path. In another features a person given a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary 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.
Shift in Focus
In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a green-clad man sit back in golden chairs – whereas in other works a pair console each other in a landscape filled with corpses, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, desolate and powerless in bed.
Inspirations and References
This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction 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.
The Example by Dana Schutz.
Interpretation and Narratives
Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.
Controversy and Impact
And the artist understands about such dynamics. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the work daily, and others demanded it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.
Aftermath and Recent Art
It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.
