Dana Schutz

The MAC is proud to be the first Canadian museum to devote a solo show to American painting sensation Dana Schutz, whose art is a powerful meld of figuration and abstraction. The exuberant universe of this internationally renowned painter confronts the eye with unthinkable situations and unspeakable acts, while a multitude of references and allusions tickle the mind. The exhibition offers an overview of Schutz's work, from her beginnings to her recent output.

In her painting, Schutz constructs a perverse vision of our present time and everyday life. Informed by multiple references, principally cubism and expressionism, her deconstructionist enterprise features the body in all of its mutations and vulnerabilities. For example, in How We Would Give Birth (2007), a woman in labour pushes out her baby while contemplating a "sublime" painting. The Face Eater series, meanwhile, attests to a new species capable of devouring itself as well as regenerating. Schutz is a past master in the art of forcefully provoking an encounter between misfortune and futility in her paintings. Whether they be victims or executioners, her figures have a wildness to them, and the settings they are portrayed in are carried along by waves of vivid, acid hues carefully applied by the artist.