The Artist Dana Schutz Review: A Feast of Gloop from the Artist Who Outraged NYC

The American painter smothers her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. This first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant tribute of her material, but significant themes are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

The Artist's Technique

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. 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 keep you going for a while. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a group of figures trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, waving hands and creating a path of debris in their path. A different work features a person receiving a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual before a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is turning everything to rubbish.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the people in power, instead of the crowds 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 golden chairs – whereas in other works a pair comfort one another in a scene filled with corpses, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies naked, forlorn and powerless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, 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 (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Painting this dense, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the public that they bait.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. In 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of a historical figure, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the work each day, and some demanded it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story 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. Looking back now, in a society more divided, simplified and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.