Sneeze

Dana Schutz

2002

Oil on canvas

Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

Dana Schutz (Born 1976 in Livonia, MI) paints abstracted figures in the midst of outlandish, gruesome, or humiliating situations. She begins by visualizing an absurd or impossible event—figures eating their own faces, carving shapes into their necks, or attempting to smoke cigarettes while swimming underwater—and proceeds to ask herself questions about the theoretical incident. Through these questions, Schutz imagines not only how the given situation might materialize visually, but also the feelings that would be associated with it. The resulting images are imaginative, humorous, and borderline sadistic in the treatment of their sub