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The American painter smothers her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her inaugural London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her era – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks losing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and roaring mobs. One piece shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work presents a person given a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual in front of a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green recline in gilded seats – while in other works a pair console each other in a landscape filled with corpses, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in a bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in references. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism 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 the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state 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 demonstrated against the painting each day, and others called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of black pain was the biggest story of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her professional life, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out 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 top tier.