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The American painter cakes her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. This first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their path. A different work features a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre initiation ritual in front of a horde of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, the artist appears to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – while in additional pieces a pair comfort one another in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, lies unclothed, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the history of painting, countless nods to pop culture (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the public that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And the artist understands about that. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched by two white men in a southern state in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her personal benefit. An activist demonstrated against the painting daily, and others called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s culture wars, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world increasingly polarized, simplified and angrier than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She inevitably emerged of that experience a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.