BOOK: Dana Schutz-Jupiter’s Lottery, David Zwirner Books

Dana Schutz’s exhibition ”Jupiter’s Lottery”, presented at David Zwirner in 2023 and accompanied by this catalogue by David Zwirner Books, Published this year, it marks a decisive moment in the artist’s trajectory, pushing the boundaries of her already ambitious painterly practice into increasingly monumental sculptural form. Long celebrated for her ability to render grotesque, tragicomic scenarios, Schutz here escalates both scale and complexity, producing works that oscillate between absurdist humor and existential dread. The paintings and sculptures on view demonstrate a continuity of Schutz’s longstanding preoccupation with embodiment under duress—figures whose oversized, mask-like features seem less individual than archetypal. Their exaggerated physiognomies function as both shields and vulnerabilities, signaling the instability of subjectivity itself. In this sense, Schutz situates her work within a lineage of modern and contemporary allegorical figuration, recalling both the carnivalesque distortions of James Ensor and the existential compressions of Philip Guston, while pushing beyond them into an allegorical register charged with contemporary urgency. Jarrett Earnest’s essay in the catalogue provides a crucial interpretive frame. His sustained analysis of “Sea Group”, Schutz’s most ambitious sculpture to date, positions the work not as an ancillary experiment but as a vital extension of her pictorial language into three-dimensional space. By foregrounding the interpenetration of her painting and sculptural practices, Earnest highlights the methodological elasticity that undergirds Schutz’s oeuvre: her insistence that medium is not a constraint but a site of continual negotiation. Jason Schmidt’s studio photographs further complicate the reading of Schutz’s work, shifting attention from finished object to process. They reveal the physical labor and material density of her practice—an embodied intensity that mirrors the subjects she depicts. The juxtaposition of critical text and photographic documentation thus offers a multi-perspectival engagement with Schutz’s production, situating “Jupiter’s Lottery” as both an aesthetic and conceptual endeavor. Ultimately, this catalogue confirms Schutz’s position as one of the most ambitious figurative artists working today. By staging scenes in which grotesque collectives grapple with survival, self-preservation, and the fragility of subjecthood, Schutz compels viewers to confront not only the absurdity but also the profound precarity of contemporary existence. “Jupiter’s Lottery” is less a culmination than a pivotal inflection point, signaling an expanded sculptural turn in an already formidable practice.-Dimitris Lempesis