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Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. This inaugural London show is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her era – is focused on surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the initial room are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one shows a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. In another presents a person given a huge mask in an odd initiation ritual in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s easy to interpret these as political, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a religious figure and a green-clad man sit back in gilded seats – while in additional pieces a pair console each other in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests naked, desolate and helpless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, filled with allusions. There’s the dreamy surreal symbolism of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to interpretation. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are a couple of distinct themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was lynched by racist perpetrators in Mississippi in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. She was accused of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the painting each day, and others called for it to be destroyed. An artist of European descent depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the late 2010s social conflicts, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a society more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her career, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.