Dana Schutz's London Solo Show Features Post-Controversy Paintings and Sculptures

Dana Schutz's exhibition 'Shadow of a Cloud Moving Slowly' at London's Thomas Dane Gallery presents 12 paintings and six bronze sculptures created in recent years. The works feature grotesque, puppet-like creatures that seem autonomous from their creator, with figures that stare, avert their gaze, or appear frozen in absurd postures. A recurring owl chained to an eyeball appears in both the sculpture 'Atlas' (2019) and painting 'Everything and Nothing' (2020), symbolizing the figures' paradoxical existence of being both dependent on and imprisoned by observation. This exhibition marks Schutz's first solo presentation in London and follows the significant controversy surrounding her painting 'Open Casket' (2016) included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial. That painting depicted Emmett Till, a Black teenager murdered by white racists in 1955, lying in his casket. The current works display heightened self-awareness and lack the brightness and humor of Schutz's earlier pieces, with subjects often appearing ashamed or evasive. Schutz has long explored themes of shame, influenced by Donald Trump's 2016 election, which she described as a man 'without shame' to The New Yorker. Her characteristic jarring colors and grotesque figures entangled in conflict remain, but now with a dystopian quality. The materials themselves seem rebellious, with paint and bronze appearing to act against both artist and viewer, offering no visual reprieve. The exhibition runs from September 16 to December 19.