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Dana Schutz cakes her canvases in thick gobs of gooey paint. This inaugural London show is a messy, exuberant tribute of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Her method – which has seen her lauded as a leading figurative artists of her era – is focused on surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. Should you enjoy losing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

The works in the initial room are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece depicts a group of figures stomps senselessly toward an event off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work presents a figure receiving a huge mask in some bizarre initiation ritual in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and angry, and mob mentality is turning everything to rubbish.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, instead of the masses that support them. Mysterious forms stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a gloomy eating space; a cardinal and a man in green recline in gilded seats – while in other works a pair console each other in a scene filled with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, desolate and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in allusions. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of Paul McCarthy. She includes nods on the art historical tradition, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical leaves itself open to analysis. It seems like I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Titian but, in my view, 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 body of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the a New York exhibition. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the work daily, and some called for it to be removed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the event. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. Looking back now, in a society more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get upset at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and Schutz probably wants to progress. 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.