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

Schutz's Approach

Her method – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important painters of her era – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. This is art for artists, 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 Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one shows a group of figures trudges mindlessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and creating a path of trash in their wake. A different work presents a person given a large disguise in an odd initiation ritual before a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, instead of the crowds that follow them. Shadowy figures fill their faces with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in golden chairs – while in other works a pair comfort one another in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a female figure, perhaps the artist, rests naked, desolate and powerless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered stuff, covered in allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a depiction of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours identifying all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her artwork a titled piece – a partly abstract representation of the body of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was lynched by two white men in a southern state in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the work each day, and some called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent painting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. This marked the height of the recent culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other 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 individuals found moments to get upset 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 now exists in its influence. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she continues to practice in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.