Dana Schutz (b. 1976, Livonia, Michigan) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Schutz’s paintings depict darkly humorous narratives, hypothetical situations, and impossible physical feats, such as swimming while smoking and crying or a manically refracted self-exam. Vibrant and tactile, Schutz’s oddly compelling images simultaneously engage the unique capabilities of the medium while conjuring a world both urgent and harrowing.
Beat Out the Sun depicts a ragged group of characters coming to do just that. Their past is unclear, their bodies marred by wounds (or paint). They lug 2×4 wood planks, bones and glass as they halt before a hovering orb. Illuminated rather than illuminating, the sun casts a shadow of itself, as a spider crawls past.
Schutz’s solo exhibitions include Dana Schutz: Eating Atom Bombs at the Transformer Station, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland (2018); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2017); Musée d’art contemporain de Montéal (2015); Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2014); Hepworth Wakefield Museum, Wakefield, United Kingdom (2013); Miami Art Museum; Denver Art Museum (2012); Neuberger Museum in Purchase, New York (2011); Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin; Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemoranea di Trento e Roverto, Italy (2010); and the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts (2006). She has participated in many acclaimed group exhibitions, including The Whitney Biennial 2017, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017); Riotous Baroque: From Cattelan to Zurbarán. Manifestations of Precarious Vitality, Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland (2012); Take Two. Worlds and Views: Contemporary Art from the Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2007); and Clandestine, Venice Biennale, Venice (2003).
Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; among many others.
The painting must be loaned to Dana Schutz’s upcoming exhibition of new work, January 10 – February 23, 2019.