Louisiana Revue – Dana Schutz

Louisiana Revy with the American artist, Dana Schutz, (b. 1976), published in connection with Louisiana's major exhibition with Schutz, Between Us . Schutz is already a classic in contemporary painting, she is represented in Louisiana's collection, and with a span of just over two decades we are presented with scenes that show that Schutz has a special relationship with the grotesque; That which is driven by the imagination, which is strange and unnatural. Dana Schutz has distinguished herself with an enormous narrative power, strong color and a sense of the dramatic – a history painter for our own wild time.

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Dana Schutz's depictions of an almost biblical nature give rise to reflections on human folly. Our own contributions and self-deception included. We stand on the edge, and people rush off, float in vessels or climb to the top of the world's mountain while pointing and gesturing as if they had the main idea for how to save the situation on land.

Towers of Babel, tsunamis, the blind leading the blind, and the spinning wheel of life are often references that one reaches for when the civil or immediately political context fades into ambiguity. But make no mistake, Schutz is neither an escapist nor ignorant of the real world - and she leaves us in the middle of it.

Dana Schutz fundamentally renews the very motif of using oil, brushes and canvas. Schutz paints something that often starts in the head or has its roots in language, and she feeds on this fundamental tension between words and images. Beauty plays no role in her art, which shows us that her fabulous technical prowess is something that is primarily in the service of ideas.

Schutz is not on social media, nor does she find her heroes in Google's ever-expanding sources. She finds them primarily in her countless choice kinships with the masters of history, ranging from the Middle Ages to the great guns of modernism. Philip Guston more than anyone else. They are with her when she shoots her thoughts onto the canvases, onto the paper of her charcoal drawings, and in recent years, when she builds the scenery into sculptures.

Schutz's mid-career exhibition at Louisiana, together with the Revy here, is living proof of how much input painting, despite its age, continues to have into the world today.

Louisiana Publications: Dana Schutz
Dimensions: H: 25.5 x W: 21.2 x D: 0.8 cm
Pages: 96
Language: Danish
Published by Louisiana, 2023