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Dana Schutz smothers her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but significant themes are subtly embedded if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her generation – is focused on texture, application, hue and substance. This is art for artists, real high-level aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and baying crowds. In one shows a group of figures trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their path. In another features a figure given a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony in front of a horde of unattractive followers. It’s easy to interpret these as social commentary, as commentary on the state of the US, on how society is divided and angry, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green recline in golden chairs – while in other works a couple console each other in a landscape filled with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of Paul McCarthy. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct narratives: the people in power, and the public that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her painting a titled piece – 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 the mid-20th century – sparked immense debate when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester demonstrated against the painting daily, and others called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent painting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of black pain was the biggest story of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

It could have ruined her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But everything she’s done now exists in its influence. She inevitably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.