Dana Schutz Review: An Orgy of Gloop from the Painter Who Outraged New York

Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. Her inaugural London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her medium, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as a leading painters of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their wake. A different work features a figure receiving a huge mask in an odd ceremony in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that support them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a religious figure and a green-clad man sit back in gilded seats – whereas in other works a pair console each other in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies naked, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the painting each day, and others demanded it to be removed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the recent social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society more divided, simplified 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

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical painting at the highest level.