If the Face Had Wheels

While in Miami I had a little time to pop into the Miami Art Museum where a Dana Schutz exhibition was on display.

I don't know exactly when I became familiar with Schutz's work, probably around 2008 when I went with Meghan Dinsmore to see her speak at Boston University as a part of their Contemporary Perspectives Lecture Series.  I just found a link to the talk here if you are interested in seeing it. It has been really good for me to go back and flip through this talk again, she sounds sweet.  What I remember from the talk is being annoyed with the simplicity of the stories of her paintings, but as I continue to look at her work it is now, of course, that simplicity which keeps bringing me back.

Cover for the catalog (that I am ordering tonight!)

"If the Face Had Wheels" was organized by Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College and State University of New York.  I checked out the Neuberger Museum of Art website to see what they had to say about her paintings and it was just what I was hoping for.  A quote that summarizes the obvious about Shutz's work, which is TRUE, and I UNDERSTAND why it is talked about all of the time, but can we not move on?  The quote is, "The subjects of Schutz's paintings spring from an absurdist sensibility as she invents imaginary stories or hypothetical situations that are bizarre and impossible, yet oddly compelling."  This line of thought has been so thought about that I've decided to NOT think about it over the past few years, which has led me to not bother keeping up with her work.  Yes, Schutz's work IS all of those things, and there is a lot to think about and enjoy there, but there is this whole other thing that I haven't heard enough about and didn't even know existed until I saw this show.  How am I just finding out about her Tourette's Series?!  Apparently Dana Schutz has things going on other than telling hypothetical stories and that rocks because her application of paint alone makes me want to roll around on one of her wet canvases, never mind a concept that I can get into as well. 

Carpenter 2010
Oil on canvas
50 x 72 inches

The painting I really wanted to show here is "Licking a Brick" from 2011 which is owned by Nina Grill.  Who is Nina Grill and where is there a photo of this painting?  Well I'll get a photo of when my catalog is delivered I suppose.
Much like in "Carpenter," "Licking a Brick" sends the viewer a direct snapshot from Schutz's brain of an impulse she has had.  I've always been intrigued by these impulses, Where do they come from? What do they mean? How much do I really want that?  I equate Schutz's impulses to scrape wood with her teeth and licking bricks with my desire to throw myself over the upper level railing at the mall and chuck my phone into the Biscayne Bay during an enjoyable conversation.  I also often think about steering my car off the road while on the highway.  These impulses always come at times when I am absolutely chilled out, I dont really want these things, I'm just impulsively curious about the experience and it kind of freaks me out.  What if my action followed through as quickly and unexpectedly as my curiosity arrived?  I love Schutz's ability to capture these fleeting thoughts into these sometimes gigantic paintings.  They are simple and quick thoughts that she manages to translate into complex and time consuming objects while not changing their impulsivity a hair.

Some of the paintings that gave my eyeballs a place to pack up and move out of my head to were:

The Breeders 2002
Oil on canvas
84 x 90 inches
Collection of Gagosian Gallery

Chicken and the Egg 2003
Oil on canvas
75 x 90 inches
Collection of Diane and Robert Moss

Notes I took about Chicken and the Egg while at the museum pretty much sum up my feelings about it, "Blue - Fucking Blue. Unapologetic!" Also, the pattern of negative space as stars in the sky and their reflection in the water below is kind of awesome too; over half of the painting is spots!

Her Arms 2003
Oil on Canvas
Collection of David Teiger

This is a scan from some promotional paper I got at the museum; it does no justice to the actual color of the painting.  The painting has got to be at least 6 feet tall; I will update the info when I get my book on the show.  Things I loved about this painting cannot be seen in photos, thick paintings just do not photograph well.  In the areas with thick paint you can see so many different colors in each stroke, it gives the marks a greater presence of time in the history of the painting.  And the hand on the left of the painting is structured so well and it is an entry point into how thoughtful all of the marks are.

Gouged Girl 2008
Oil on canvas
Collection of Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz

Some of the text that went along with this piece in the museum referenced Rene Magritte's "This is Not A Pipe" painting.  I can't totally get on board with that.  Yes, this is not a picnic and this is not a real girl or real anything else, but I just find this painting to be more about pattern, color and experimentation -with a still life as the vehicle for these things, than I see the edited still life as the actual point of the whole thing.

I loved the play of thick and thin paint in this piece.  The orange splash of color you see between the girl and the bottle is one of the thinnest areas in the piece although it appears to be additive as far as color is concerned.  That bright orange is such an intense color that along with its thin application gives the appearance of beaming, color as it's own light source, I love it.  

Another area of interest I found was with the flesh colors on the girl and the watermelon.  The color used is pretty similar and works as one color compositionally, but in reality it is a cool tone used in the fruit.

Schutz is holding it down and I'm glad that I got back on board with that.