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The American painter smothers her canvases in heavy layers of gooey paint. Her first proper 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

Her method – 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, real high-level aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Works in the First Gallery

The works in the initial room are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one shows a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris in their wake. A different work presents a person receiving a huge mask in an odd ceremony in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as social commentary, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, the artist appears to shift her focus to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man sit back in gilded seats – whereas in other works a pair console each other in a landscape strewn with corpses, and a female figure, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, filled with references. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the elements from classic painters with which she’s sprinkled the works.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was lynched by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her personal benefit. A protester picketed the work each day, and some called for it to be removed. An artist of European descent depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. This marked the height of the recent social conflicts, a period that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. In retrospect, in a world increasingly polarized, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that people had the time to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done since exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that experience a transformed creator. But what hasn’t changed is how good she is, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, gloopy and deeply political art at the highest level.