Silke Otto-Knapp
Bühnenbild (sitzen, stehen), 2021
Silkscreen Print on Yamada Hanga handmade paper
25.6in. x 32.3 in. (65 cm. x 82 cm.)
Signed Edition of 30
Following Silke Otto-Knapp’s Spring 2020 exhibition, In the waiting room, the artist has created an edition for the benefit of the Renaissance Society: Bühnenbild (sitzen, stehen), 2021.
In the waiting room featured a group of six large-scale watercolor paintings by the Los Angeles-based German artist, situated in an arrangement of free-standing structures to form a kind of multidimensional stage set within the gallery. In some of Otto-Knapp’s works, silhouetted bodies stretch, ambulate, and contort, in the midst of a performance or preparing for one. Others introduce more scenic elements, reminiscent of the painted backdrops used on proscenium stages to ground actions within a particular setting. Rendered in grayscale with a single black pigment, each carries a certain enigmatic quality, the seeming simplicity of their reduced compositions belied by a deep conceptual framework and powerful sense of atmosphere.
Silke Otto-Knapp was born in Osnabrück, Germany, in 1970. She completed a degree in cultural studies at the University of Hildesheim, Germany, and received her MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London. Silke has been Professor for Painting and Drawing at UCLA School of Art and Architecture since 2015. Recent solo exhibitions of her work include What are the directions on a map at Galerie Buchholz, Berlin; Bühnenbilder at Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis; Land and Sea at Regen Projects, Los Angeles; Violets at Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo; Land lies in water at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Monday or Tuesday at Camden Arts Center, London; Questions of Travel at Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; Seascapes at greengrassi, London; and Geography and Plays at Kunsthal Charlotten-borg, Denmark. Recently she has participated in Cosmic Dancer, Barbican Art Center, London; Performer and Participant, Tate Modern, London; Stages Biennial, Winnipeg, Manitoba; Liverpool Biennial 2018: Beautiful world, where are you?, Liverpool; Chalk Circles, REDCAT, Los Angeles; Spaces without drama or surface is an illusion, but so is depth,Graham Foundation, Chicago; Made in L.A. 2016: a, the, though, only,Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Sacré 101, Migros Museum, Zürich, Switzerland; 9th Istanbul Biennial; and The British Art Show 6, Baltic, Newcastle. Her work is in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Mudam, Luxembourg; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; and Museo Serralves, Portugal, among others.
Silke Otto-Knapp’s print marks the relaunch of our esteemed editions program, which has produced works by Kara Walker, Albert Oehlen, Juan Muñoz, Laura Letinsky, Kerry James Marshall, John Baldessari, Sol LeWitt, Isaac Julian, Nora Schultz, and others. This new chapter of editions forefronts collaboration between the Renaissance Society, artists, and friends to create another platform for experimentation.
