Dana Schutz: The Gardener

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THE GARDENER: Dana Schutz painted a new series of paintings in 2021, exhibited at the end of the year at the CFA in Berlin under the title "The Gardener." After the now out-of-print "Waiting for the Barbarians," which featured the painting "Open Casket," that faced violent attacks and strong protests from activists in 2017 during the Whitney Biennial, the artist presents a new style of painting. She exaggerates the expressiveness of her canvases through thick black outlines. While the destructive nature of her 2016 paintings was frightening in a form that could almost be described as sterile due to the curiously joyful and almost "sunny" color palette she used for grim situations and subjects, the new canvases, along with a series of sculptures, appear hard and threatening. To quote Dana Zaja in the accompanying text, which deserves to be read: "In Schutz's pictorial universe, the most mundane activities rest on a dark element, particularly since any form of work seems to constitute an act of rebellion against our lamentable world. Adaptation and resistance go hand in hand."