Dana Schutz’s art consists of scenes from a post-apocalyptic world where the white – American? – population has mutated into grotesque survivors. Despite their shortcomings, their eyes, posture and actions reveal a sort of melancholy empathy.
Fantastic, irreverent figurative paintings are on view both in Chelsea and in Bushwick this month. At Theodore:Art, Christopher Moss turns the head into a blocky minimalist landscape/architectural …
Peter Schjeldahl on the artist, who vivifies the conditions of life on a faltering planet as dramatically as one can while staying devoted to aesthetic ideals.
The New York artist’s wildly colorful, figurative paintings are having a major moment on both sides of the border.
Peter Schjeldahl on the artist, who vivifies the conditions of life on a faltering planet as dramatically as one can while staying devoted to aesthetic ideals.
I invite you to look at the image above and get an impression without knowing who made the painting, if you don’t already know. What does it say about the subject and the artist. I’ll c…
Dana Schutz "Self-Portrait" This is unusual subject matter for contemporary NYC-based painter Dana Schutz, who states that her work is emphatically NOT autobiographical. Schutz is known for her brightly colored works with such macabre themes as "Self-Eaters and the People Who Love Them." Her usual subject matter, very frequently death and dismemberment, is presented with such humorous silliness and bright deliciously swishy swathes of paint that they can make you smile and gag at the same time. This image is from the Rizzoli monograph on the artist from 2010. When journalist Mei Chin interviewed Schutz for an article in Bomb magazine in 2006, she asked the artist about the fantastical nature of her imagery and Schutz replied, " I respond to what I think is happening in the world. The hypotheticals in the paintings can act as surrogates or narratives for phenomena that I feel are happening in culture." In my own (likely flawed) assessment of Schutz's aesthetic motivation I believe what she is tackling is the duality of our culture's aggressive "feel good" imperative which co-exists side by side with the ever-increasing awareness of the stark tragedies of life. (Which thanks to world wide web and more media attention we now know more and more and more about.) Schutz's paintings seem to me to be a brave, funny, yet at heart horrified way of trying to reconcile these two opposed streams of consciousness: the beauty of life and its ugliness. A hard row to hoe. Hence all the Cadmium Yellow!
In Dana Schutz: Imagine Me and You, on view at Petzel Gallery through February 23, the artist’s canvasses are hyper-assertive, full of operatic grandeur, self-mocking turbulence, disfigured hideousness and the psychopathology of her figures.
Le MAC présente une exposition originale qui se veut un bilan du travail de l’artiste. Celle-ci met l’accent sur les temps forts de sa production récente. Dana Schutz est une artiste new-yorkaise dont la production des dix dernières années a exercé une influence notable dans le champ de la peinture contemporaine. Peuplés de portraits ou de […]
