Beschreibung:

Dana Schutz Reformers 2004 oil on canvas 75 1/16 x 91 1/16 in. (190.7 x 231.3 cm.) Signed and dated "Dana Schutz 2004" on the reverse.
Provenance Victoria Miro, London Acquired from the above by the present owner Exhibited London, Victoria Miro, Painting 2004, March 30 – April 24, 2004 Waltham, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Dana Schutz Paintings 2002-2005, January 19 – April 9, 2006 London, Royal Academy of Arts, USA Today: New American Art, October 6 – November 4, 2006 Saint Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, USA Today: New American Art from the Saatchi Gallery, October 24, 2007 – January 13, 2008 Bilbao, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Riotous Baroque: From Cattelan to Zurbarán - Tributes to Precarious Vitality, June 18 – October 6, 2013 London, Saatchi Gallery, Body Language, November 20, 2013 – March 23, 2014 Literature J. Cape, The Triumph of Painting, Saatchi Gallery, London, 2005, pp. 192-193 (illustrated) Dana Schutz Paintings 2002-2005, exh. cat., Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, 2006, p. 43 (illustrated) USA Today: New American Art from The Saatchi Gallery, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2006, pp. 328-329 (illustrated) USA Today: New American Art from The Saatchi Gallery, exh. cat., The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, 2007, p. 161 (illustrated) J. Foer, B. Schwabsky, Dana Schutz New York: Rizzoli, 2010, p. 59 (illustrated) E. Booth-Clibborn, The History of the Saatchi Gallery, London: E. Booth-Clibborn Editions, 2011, p. 695 (illustrated) Body Language, exh. cat., Saatchi Gallery, London, 2013, p. 74 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay “I embrace the area between which the subject is composed and decomposing, formed and formless, inanimate and alive.” DANA SCHUTZ 2004 Dana Schutz’s masterpiece Reformers, 2004, is an exquisite example of the artist’s use of dazzling colors entwined with shattered forms. Three figures are seen, bowing over a disjointed table. They ferociously disassemble a human form and pour kaleidoscopic debris into the vortex space between the splintered wooden table top. One figure empties a bucket of liquid while the other grasps a human arm with his feet. Yet the figures themselves seem to be an arrangement of disconnected body parts—arms that float from the body, feet and legs that serve as prehensile tools. Illustrated in vibrant hues, these hybrid figures both intrigue and terrify. Set against a bright blue sky and gossamer white clouds, the scene is one of colorful chaos. As Schutz explains, “Color is essential to the way I organize space in the painting.” (Dana Schutz in Conversation with Jarrett Earnest, The Brooklyn Rail, June 4, 2012). The zealous brushstrokes of this incomprehensible landscape lend itself to the telling of an epic tale, one both of tragedy and comedy. Reformers captures Schutz’s unparalleled ability to sculpt through her additive painting process, in which layers of brushstrokes are built upon each other in lush and tactile brilliance. Here the paint is literally sculpted upon the picture plane with ecstatic imagination. The layers of hot magenta, olive green, sky blue, and chocolaty brown are folded upon the canvas in thick strokes, collapsing and colliding as they bedeck the surface in their sumptuous forms. Through this application, the unimaginable comes to life; that which seems impossible – a carnivorous scene of terrible mutilation – is infused with audacity and vibrancy. Schutz depicts hypothetical scenarios, informed by reality, but extended into the imaginary. In the Reformers, 2004, three figures – if they can be called such – are enclosed by the rectangular canvas, but not controlled; they gorge upon and rip apart the form that lies before them. They are ravenous with greed as limbs are torn, giving way to a waterfall of colors. As is brilliantly typical of Schutz’s tableaux, one’s eyes feast upon the work, unsure of whether the story is beginning or ending. The players in this tragicomedy stare with unbroken focus at the goods before them; the two central forms bend over the table, eyes wide and unwavering, ready to set their master plan in motion. Li