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The American painter smothers her canvases in heavy layers of viscous pigment. This inaugural London show is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is all about texture, application, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece shows a collection of forms stomps senselessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their path. A different work features a figure receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony before a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to read any of this as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that support them. Mysterious forms fill their faces with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – whereas in additional pieces a pair console each other in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, desolate and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in references. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, numerous references to mainstream media (I am almost 100% sure that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

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 Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the public that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. 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 racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. A protester picketed the painting daily, and others demanded it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a period 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 more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.