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

The American painter smothers her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. This first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her era – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment 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.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their wake. A different work features a figure given a large disguise in an odd ceremony in front of a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace 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 follow them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in gilded seats – while in other works a couple console each other in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist picketed the work each day, and others demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out 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 painting at the highest level.