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The American painter smothers her paintings in thick gobs of viscous pigment. This first proper London exhibition is a messy, exuberant celebration of her material, but some big messages are subtly embedded if you manage to uncover them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as a leading figurative artists of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, hue and substance. This is art for artists, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shadow, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that truly drives the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are full of enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. One piece shows a collection of forms stomps senselessly towards something outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their path. In another presents a figure given a huge mask in an odd ceremony in front of a horde of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as observation on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and crowd psychology is turning everything to waste.

The Kiss by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the other gallery space, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than the masses that follow them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with grapes and steak in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a man in green sit back in gilded seats – while in additional pieces a couple console each other in a scene filled with corpses, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, rests unclothed, desolate and powerless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is extremely complex, multi-layered art, covered in allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the carnival grotesqueries of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to pop culture (It seems certain that a particular work is a portrait of Handsome Squidward 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

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic leaves itself open to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the meaning of a Titian but, for my money, there are two relatively clear narratives: the people in power, and the crowds that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of Emmett Till, a young African-American who was murdered 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 exploiting black death for her own gain. A protester demonstrated against the painting daily, and some demanded it to be destroyed. A white artist painting – perhaps compassionately – 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 featured infighting even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it feels almost quaint that individuals found moments to get upset at this emotional, mournful artwork.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to progress. But all her subsequent work now exists in its influence. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a transformed creator. But what remains constant is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, thick and highly topical art at the top tier.