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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. This first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important figurative artists of her generation – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy losing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s enough here to keep you going for a while. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one shows a group of figures stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their wake. In another features a person given a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. 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 mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

An Embrace by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, instead of the masses that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a man in green recline in golden chairs – whereas in other works a couple comfort one another in a scene filled with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, desolate and helpless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that one painting is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. It seems like one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And the artist understands about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown 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 demanded it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a world more divided, less nuanced and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.