Dana Schutz

That same year, she participated in Maine's Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture residency program, and in 2000 completed her BFA upon her return to Cleveland.

Since then her fictive subjects have ranged from people who can eat themselves, a gravity fanatic, imaginary births and deaths, public/private performers, awkward situations, and mundane objects.

[7] When asked where she comes up with her subject matter, Schutz told Mei Chin of Bomb magazine: "The paintings are not autobiographical [...] I respond to what I think is happening in the world.

With regard to color, Heiser adds: "Schutz's pictures favor a carefully chosen palette of vomit and mold and rot, between pink and purple, turquoise and olive, ocher and crap.

In her review of the show, New York Times critic Roberta Smith praised it, writing: "More than ever, Ms. Schutz seems to want every stroke and smudge of paint to register separately so that you can see through to the bare canvas and reconstruct her every move as she fearlessly tackles life's flux.

"[17] Dana Schutz' painting of the corpse of Emmett Till, titled Open Casket, drew protests when shown in the 2017 Whitney Biennial,[20] and there were demands that it be removed from the show.

"[22] Photos of Till's open casket funeral were published in The Chicago Defender and Jet magazine;[23] the murder was a seminal event in the civil rights movement.

[25][26] Art.net critic Christian Viveros-Fauné described the work as "a powerful painterly reaction to the infamous [photograph] ... the canvas makes material the deep cuts and lacerations portrayed in the original photo by means of cardboard relief.

"[27] Some objected to the painting's inclusion in the 2017 Whitney Biennial,[28] there were debates online, and protesters physically blocked the work from view.

"[32] Jo Livingstone and Lovia Gyarkye of the New Republic argued Open Casket is a form of cultural appropriation disrespectful toward Mobley's intention for the images of her son.

[35] Artist, writer, and art professor at the University of Florida Coco Fusco[36] responded by writing: "I find it alarming and entirely wrongheaded to call for the censorship and destruction of an artwork, no matter what its content is or who made it.

In weighing in on the discussion, Roberta Smith cited examples of "earlier works of art by those who crossed ethnic lines in their depiction of social trauma.

"[25] Smith also positioned Open Casket in relation to other paintings Schutz has made of bodies that have endured suffering and violence.

This includes Presentation (2005), a work based on dead American soldiers being returned home from war in Iraq and Afghanistan and their invisibility in the media due to a military ban on photographing them.

Reto Thüring who organized a solo exhibition of her work at the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Boston ICA said that he "welcomed" the negative feedback the institutions received for showing Open Casket and that it was "a learning experience" for them.