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Dana Schutz cakes her paintings in thick gobs of viscous pigment. This first proper London exhibition 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

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as a leading painters of her generation – is all about texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shading, there’s enough here to keep you going for a while. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, surreal, cartoony, symbolic visuals that truly drives the paintings tick.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. In one shows a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something off canvas, brandishing fists and leaving a trail of debris 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 read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on the state of the US, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

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 grapes and steak 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 scene filled with corpses, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, desolate and helpless in a bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in references. There’s the ethereal dream-like signs of a symbolist master, the pink, corporeal animation of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of James Ensor, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. There are riffs on the art historical tradition, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of a cartoon character from SpongeBob SquarePants). You could spend hours spotting all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s sprinkled the artworks.

The Example by the exhibitor.

Meaning and Stories

Painting this dense, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear themes: the people in power, and the crowds that they provoke.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about such dynamics. Back in 2017, her painting a titled piece – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of a historical figure, a black teenager who was lynched by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. An activist demonstrated against the painting daily, and others demanded it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – perhaps compassionately – a image of African-American suffering was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a time that featured infighting even if they were on the same side. Looking back now, in a world more divided, simplified and angrier than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get upset at this heartfelt, sorrowful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

It could have ruined her professional life, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political painting at the top tier.