Dana Schutz has a tremendous show of paintings, etchings and sculptures across both Thomas Dane spaces until 20th December. The New York based artist paints at considerable scale in lush red-tending wet-on-wet – with what I’m tempted to call not so much chutzpah as great Schutzpah! The history of painting meets the evocation of psychological states, often through complex groupings such that – as the exhibition’s title has it – the characters become ‘One Big Animal’. You can read the paintings as comments on the absurdities of both those in power and the crowds that follow them, or you can trace the influences: for me, Beckman meets de Kooning, while Eddie Frankel’s review for the Guardian mentions, just as validly, Redon, Guston, Ensor and Paul McCarthy. In the gallery’s description, the grouped figures are in ‘hypothetical, absurd or impossible situations, or strange narratives where imagined crises and social relations are held in tension.’ ‘The Rally’ provides an example.
In the simpler composition of ‘The Kiss’, just two figures become one in an embrace that seems equally readable as sex, violence or dance. A human with tentacular hair engages with a monstrously Kafkaesque bug, part-crustacean, part-insect. A surprising colour note is provided by a detail which is almost as almost as bizarre in the apparent context: a small picnic blanket lies bottom right, suggesting that this might be a beach scene that started out rather more calmly. Perhaps the surreal inter-species scenario evolved from a quotidian day on the beach with a lunchbox containing lobster salad? Or, returning to Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’, might we imagine Gregor’s sister, Greta – the one who was initially most sympathetic to his plight, continuing to see him as human – taking her brother on a day out? That would fit with the ambiguity of the couple’s entanglement, as even Greta became worn down, eventually finding Gregor such a burden and nuisance that she declares ‘We must try to get rid of it’. The title might then lead us to the Bible, in which Judas’ kiss is an act of betrayal…
Paul Carey-Kent will select a ‘Work of the Month’ and a ‘Show of the Month’, as well as writing about
his ‘Gallery of the Week’ in between…
