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Dana Schutz smothers her canvases in thick gobs of viscous pigment. This first proper London show is a splodgy, orgiastic tribute of her medium, but some big messages are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – which has seen her lauded as one of the most important painters of her era – is focused on texture, application, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced aesthetic geekery. If you get your kicks immersing yourself in layers of pigment and shadow, there’s enough here to engage you for a long time. But it’s her bizarre, surreal, cartoony, metaphorical imagery that really makes the paintings tick.

Works in the First Gallery

These pieces in the first gallery are populated by enormous one-eyed beings and baying crowds. In one depicts a group of figures trudges mindlessly toward an event outside the frame, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. A different work features a person receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony in front of a crowd of ugly supporters. It’s not hard to read any of this as social commentary, as commentary on America’s condition, on societal splits and furious, and crowd psychology is transforming all to waste.

An Embrace by Dana Schutz.

Changing Themes

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to shift her focus to the people in power, rather than 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 sit back in golden chairs – while in additional pieces a couple console each other in a landscape strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, perhaps the artist, rests unclothed, forlorn and helpless in bed.

Influences and Allusions

This is ultradense, thickly layered art, covered in allusions. You’ll find the dreamy surreal symbolism of Odilon Redon, the pink, corporeal animation of an American painter, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the large-headed oddities of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, countless nods to mainstream media (It seems certain that a particular work is a depiction of Handsome Squidward from an animated series). It would take time identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the artworks.

The Example by Dana Schutz.

Interpretation and Narratives

Art this complex, intricate and symbolic invites to interpretation. I feel as if I’m being quizzed on the meaning of a Renaissance masterpiece but, in my view, there are two relatively clear narratives: the ruling class, and the public that they bait.

The 2017 Scandal

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her artwork Open Casket – a partly abstract representation of the corpse of a historical figure, a young African-American who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi in 1955 – caused untold controversy when it was displayed at the a New York exhibition. She was accused of profiting from tragedy for her own gain. A protester picketed the painting daily, and some called for it to be removed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a image of black pain was the major headline of the biennial. It was the peak of the late 2010s culture wars, a time that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a society increasingly polarized, simplified and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that individuals found moments to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Aftermath and Recent Art

This might have ended her career, and the artist likely aims to move on. But everything she’s done now exists in its shadow. She unavoidably emerged of that ordeal a changed artist. But what remains constant is how good she is, how she still engages in masterful, unsettling, gloopy and deeply political art at the top tier.