Why Not Write About Dana Schutz?
February 14th, 2006“Don’t be critical of Dana Schutz!” is what Kaveri told me when I said I may write this blog post. This weekend, we both went to see her mini-retrospective at Brandeis.
Why would I be critical of Dana Schutz? Look at this great picture of her standing in her studio:
She looks fun, right? Like the type of artist, you’d like to get to know?
And I have a sort of soft spot for her work because it’s the type of stuff that would have marked you as majorly uncool when I was in grad school. Back in the day (late 90s), only rich dudes who read Bukowski and looked at a lot of Frank Auerbach would adopt that type of figurative/expressionist language. So she has gigantic balls, I think.
And it’s funny because the work now on view at the Rose Museum is different from the Dana Schutz I first encountered. I first saw her work when she was a graduate student at Columbia, and back then it had more the look of “painting critique” that was then the rage. “Painting critique” really wasn’t a critique at all but a way of reframing expressionist language so you could take one step back from all that surging feeling and say to the viewer, “so this is what feeling was like; remember that?” What you’d do is you’d take a typical expressionist approach to mark-making—say, a big pour of paint or a big slash with a housepainters brush—and you’d do it in a very, very deliberate way so it looked icy-cool. And to this day, paintings conceived in this fashion look awesome.
Here’s kind of what her paintings looked like back then, a big network of swords:
But nowadays, she looks more like an actual expressionist, albeit with a lot of humor and a kooky narrative thrown in, like a modern day Philip Guston. And looking at those swords, maybe she’s always drawn on Guston, pre-abstraction Guston like this:
Or post-abstraction Guston like this:
She has the same fascination with the corporeal. In a lot of her paintings people are getting picked apart, their entrails are hanging out, they’re blowing out huge amounts of snot, or chewing their face out or something.
But the color is nothing like Guston, who seemed to mostly stick with white, Cadmium Red Light, and black. Dana Schutz will lay down a thin wash of, say, magenta as a ground; and then she’ll very deliberately clump up mounds of pre-mixed color that play off against that ground—olive green, bright plum, beige, navy blue. She’ll clump-up a big mountain with a certain set of colors and then she’ll move over to a tree and paint that in a different way, with a different set of colors. You look at her color choices and you think, “Jesus, I could never do that.”
But, does it all click for me? The cryptic narratives, the lush and jarring color, the fun blobs of paint, the political high-mindedness, the gross-out body stuff—does it all come together?
Not entirely, but I was instructed not to be negative. I like Dana Schutz. By all accounts she’s very nice. Kaveri has met her in passing a few times and reports that she’s terrific, so there you go. Also, if I ever meet her at a party, I want her to like me.
February 15th, 2006 at 12:34 am
I must say, I love when you blog about art. Keep this shit up.
February 15th, 2006 at 12:38 am
I also love when you blog about art!
But, I actually read & understand it.
Indeed, keep this shit up.
February 15th, 2006 at 1:31 am
thanks, dudes.
February 15th, 2006 at 11:44 am
I like it when you blog about woolite and crest.
Fuck this art jazz.
February 15th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
Judging from the comments, you guys are the only ones who read this blog.
As a side note, if I keep making art posts, I may have to rename this blog because there’s already a popular art blog out there called “bloggy” by some guy from Columbia.
February 15th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
Hey, I read your blog too! And I also like it when you blog about art, even when that entails quoting me saying something retarded.
February 15th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Aside from the if-i-ever-meet-her-at-a-party factor, which I admit is what I was thinking of, I also just meant, don’t be more critical than you would be if she weren’t such a phenom. there’s plenty of haters out there. see the back-and-forth on
http://edwardwinkleman.blogspot.com/2005/07/artist-of-week-071905.html.
February 16th, 2006 at 11:40 pm
I’m reading your blog too – silently. Silently in my head. I read aloud in my head. So loud. Get out! I’m sorry…
February 17th, 2006 at 10:45 am
Well if it isn’t Mark.
Coming out of the woodwork.
February 17th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Yup, out of the woodwork I am – out of the closet too. Had I mentioned that? I read your whole freaking Bloggy last night. Couldn’t sleep afterwards actually. I was just so scared. Think there is something to staring at a computer screen for a couple of hours prior to putting head to pillow. It isn’t a good idea. Wakes a man up. So, here I am: blood-shot and haggard. Thanks Mitch. Thanks Bloggy!
February 22nd, 2006 at 5:05 pm
I too read your blog and I too like when you write about art. What you say about her use of color interests me a lot. As far as her social content is concerned I think “Whoa, she’s in big trouble if someone truly edgy comes along…”
March 2nd, 2006 at 2:32 am
Mitch, this is a great blog, especially when you write about art. You should post more art blogginess now that it’s March. The da Massina show at the Met… the Les Rogers show… not that I’ve seen these yet, but still, I look to you, Bloggy, for comment. I have heard tell of this other “Bloggy”. Change the name and be done with it. It means nothing. Have you seen the Tomory Dodge paintings at CRG?
March 2nd, 2006 at 7:57 pm
Just found your blog while looking for info about Dana, coincidentally. Made me laugh, so I’m linking from mine to read more later!
On Dana: She does look like a nice lady, doesn’t she? And then I think… “she paints pictures of people eating themselves” (I also like those, btw)… and I just can’t put 2 and 2 together.
A good bit about her over at The Saatchi Gallery, too.
March 2nd, 2006 at 8:59 pm
The swords kind of remind me more of Ernst than Guston. The new stuff…I hope it’s not insulting to say it made me think of Ted McKeever? Maybe a little Barron Storey?
March 2nd, 2006 at 11:55 pm
uh-oh. When comic book guys and art guys collide, all hell breaks loose. I had to do an image search on those names, David. (not Ernst)
(is it wrong that I can only see those illustrations as teenage-boy fantasies?)
also, thanks for the post, Kat.
March 21st, 2006 at 7:12 pm
i personally know her, for many years now, and yes she is nice, but that doesn’t make her deserving of the ridiculous hype and explosion of a career. I have always though she was good, but now this good and i personally still don’t think she is really doing anything that groundbreaking if you REALLY know the history of art. She is the perfect poster child for a artworld that doesn’t want to admit it is now longer avant-garde. oohhh. look, we have a painter who makes big bright colourful fat brushstroke paintings!! and she is a woman!!!!!! even better!!! and she is cute and nice!!!! WOW, we can market the shit out of this!
If you want to know how she (arbitrarily does her color) just look at how you described it, thats how simple it really is!
April 7th, 2006 at 11:11 am
She deserves credit for getting out of Livonia, Michigan! Love the blog…keep writing art posts, and posting about Dana! Take care Mitch, Steve!
April 10th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
thanks steve. And thanks for the shout-out on your blog!
April 20th, 2006 at 8:48 am
No problem…thanks for checking out my blog!