Artist of the Week 07/19/05

This week, I'm breaking the pattern of discussing "underappreciated" artists to discuss one who's getting a good deal of attention, but may not yet be a household name outside the inner art world.

Dana Schutz is one of the art world's latest rising stars. As such, despite being an incredibly nice person (or so I'm told...I haven't met her yet), she's the target of a great deal of criticism among other artists. Most of this criticism strikes me as feeding from jealousy (Dana makes paintings, you either like them or you don't, but even if you don't, the only conceivable rationale for making a federal case out of how much you don't like them would be that you're jealous of her success).

I'm still learning to appreciate Dana's work myself, and I like that about it. Work that's instantly accessible generally bores me after a few viewings, and I'm always excited to see one of Dana's pieces in an exhibition. I don't always like them, but I like to see them.

Despite my current on-the-fence position about her work, I found myself defending it recently to two friends who were very upset by it. We stood before a giant piece of hers in a public collection and I explained what I found exhilarating about it, what I found masterful about it, and why I can accept (until my own epiphany) that others much more experienced in judging art than I am are absolutely nuts about it. My friends walked away shaking their heads unconvinced (I'm perhaps not the best person to try and convince them though). Here's a piece like the one we were discussing (but it wasn't this one):


Dana Schutz, Civil Planning, 2004, Oil on canvas, 114” x 168”

Represented in New York by Zach Feuer Gallery, Dana's work feeds from incredibly rich and fascinating narratives. In the exhibition that proved her breakaway show, "Frank from Observation," she created a series of paintings around the premise that she and "Frank" were the last two people on the earth. As she noted in the press release "The man is the last subject and the last audience and, because the man isn't making any paintings, I am the last painter." Here's one of the works from that exhibition (the one at the top is from this show as well):


Dana Schutz Frank on a Rock, 2002, Oil on canvas, 66" x 47"

In her next solo exhibition at the gallery she constructed a world of "people with the unusual ability to devour themselves." As the press release for that exhibition noted, Schutz employs humor and wit to lighten the otherwise rather perverse subject matter. Consider this piece:


Dana Schutz, Mulch, 2004, Oil on canvas, 22” x 28”

The arm's sharp angle as the hand grabs the dismembered leg and the flattened placement of the eyes (both references to Picasso?) are so over the top, you can't help but enjoy them (in an early teen's appreciation for things that gross you out sort of way). And, in what's perhaps an indication of her growing awareness that she's carving out her own place, Schutz is referencing art history even more grandly in a piece she finished for the "Greater New York" exhibition. Seen below, the massive painting references perhaps Ensor and Rembrandt, and indicates a growing security about what she's doing:


Dana Schutz, Presentation, 2005, Oil on canvas, 120" x 168"

Again, I find that I like some of Dana's paintings better than others, but I'm never less than thrilled to find one. I like the idea that I have time to discover the work and that an artist as young as her (born 1976) has years left in which to amaze the rest of us.