🔗 Share this article

Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. This first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic celebration of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her generation – is focused on surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one depicts a group of figures trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their path. In another presents a person given a large disguise in an odd ceremony before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to interpret these as social commentary, 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 redirect attention to the people in power, rather than the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a scene filled with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, forlorn and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, filled with allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. It seems like one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – sparked immense debate when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. An activist picketed the painting each day, and others demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a society more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work now exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the highest level.