Dana Schutz, Gravity Fanatic, 2005 Oil on canvas 72 x 78 inches Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz Collection © Dana Schutz Courtesy of the artist and Zach Feuer, New York

Even before she reached the age of 30, Dana Schutz was considered one of the leading artists of her generation. Now 35, Schutz’s first ten-year (2001-2011) survey, opening at Miami Art Museum January 15, 2012, was heralded by art critics nationwide when it opened at the Neuberger Museum of Art earlier this year, even landing on the cover of November’s Art in America. The acclaimed exhibition, Dana Schutz: If the Face Had Wheels, will open with an exhibition preview and artist talk on Saturday, January 14, 2012, from 6-9pm, and will remain on view until February 26, 2012.

Combining fantasy and reality, humor and horror, Schutz’s dynamic paintings abound with expressionist energy, combining an absurdist sensibility with vibrant color and tactile brushwork. Her imaginative work, filled with inventive stories and hypothetical situations, is strange, humorous, whimsical, disturbing and oddly compelling, all at the same time. Featured are 30 paintings and 12 drawings, including work from each of her fascinating and innovative series, from Frank from Observation (2002), portraying the fictional life of “Frank, the last man on Earth,” as portrayed by Schutz, the world’s last painter, to recent works from the Tourettes and Verbs series including Swimming, Smoking, Crying, and Shaking, Cooking, Peeing (2009).

Among her many imaginative scenarios, she has used music-related subjects to springboard into ideas about monumentality, angst and the construction of pop icons including: The Breeders (2002), an image of indie rock duo Kim and Kelly Deal; Her Arms (2003), a massive painting of Kim Gordon, founding member of Sonic Youth; and Autopsy of Michael Jackson (2005).

Dana Schutz was born in Livonia, Michigan in 1976. She received a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2000 and an MFA from Columbia University in 2002. She has had solo exhibitions at the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland; and Site Santa Fe; and has been included in group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and The Saatchi Gallery, London; and international events such as the Venice and Prague Biennales. Her paintings are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, among others.

Exhibition Organization and Support

Dana Schutz: If the Face Had Wheels, organized by the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, is curated by Helaine Posner, Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs at the Neuberger Museum of Art. Schutz is the 2011 recipient of the Roy R. Neuberger Exhibition Prize, awarded every two years to an artist for an early career survey and monographic catalogue. Additional funding is provided by the Friends of the Neuberger Museum of Art, Carlo Bronzini Vender and Tanya Traykovski, Helen Stambler Neuberger and Jim Neuberger, and Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell.

The Miami presentation is supported by Joan Reynolds Linclau.

A fully illustrated catalogue co-published by the Neuberger Museum of Art and Prestel, with an essay by noted art historian Cary Levine and an in-depth interview with Ms. Schutz accompanies the exhibition.