Introducing this season’s sculpture commission: Dana Schutz
The American artist Dana Schutz (b. 1976) is widely regarded as one of the most important artists of her generation, known for her bold, expressive paintings and ambitious sculptural work.
For Kistefos, Schutz has created Blind Boat: a monumental sculptural group developed specifically for the sculpture park. The work marks her first outdoor sculpture at this scale, and signals a striking new direction in her practice.
Originally trained as a painter, Schutz began working in sculpture in 2018. Her works are first modelled in clay and later cast in bronze, retaining the immediacy and gestures of her hand.
Working across painting and sculpture, her work—vivid, figurative, and often charged with tension, absurdity, and narrative—has made her a defining voice in contemporary art since the early 2000s.
Since rising to prominence in the early 2000s, she has presented major solo exhibitions at institutions including The Hepworth Wakefield; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris.
She has also participated in major international exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale, the Whitney Biennial, and Greater New York at MoMA PS1. Her work is held in leading public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She lives and works in New York.
Blind Boat will be unveiled on 9 May as part of the season opening at Kistefos.
Credits:
1. Dana Schutz. Photo: Jason Schmidt
2. The Medium, 2024. © Dana Schutz. Courtesy the artist, David Zwirner, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, and Thomas Dane Gallery. Photo: Stephen Arnold.
3. The Optometrists, 2024. © Dana Schutz. Courtesy the artist, David Zwirner, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, and Thomas Dane Gallery. Photo: Stephen Arnold.
4. Exhibition view, Dana Schutz, One Big Animal, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, 2025. © Dana Schutz. Courtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery. Photo: Ben Westoby / Fine Art Documentation.