Silke otto knapp biography of william

SILKE OTTO-KNAPP

 

BIOGRAPHY

 

Born in Osnabrück
, Germany, 1970.

Died Los Angeles, CA, 2022.

 

Education:        

 

Degree in Cultural Studies, University of Hildesheim, Germany, 1997

M.A., Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, UK, 1996

 

Selected Solo Exhibitions:

 

2024

"Silke Otto-Knapp, Bühnenbilder," Kunstverein, Hamburg, Germany, January 27 – April 14, 2024

 

2023    

“Silke Otto-Knapp,” Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA, June 2 – August 12, 2023

 

2022

“Silke Otto-Knapp,” Casa Mutina Milano, Milan, Italy, November 17, 2022 – March 31, 2023

“Versammlung,” Galerie Buchholz, New York, NY, October 28, 2022 – January 21, 2023

 

2020

“Silke Otto-Knapp: What are the directions on a map?,” Galerie Buchholz, Berlin, Germany, February 13 2020 – April 11, 2020

“Silke Otto-Knapp: In the waiting room,” The Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL, January 11 – March 29, 2020

 

2019

“Land and Sea,” Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA, February 23 – March 30, 2019

 

2018

“Violets,” Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, September 7 – October 6, 2018

 

2017    

“Bühnenbilder,” Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis, MN, November 18, 2017 – January 20, 2018; catalogue

“Normalbühne (Zürich),” Taylor Macklin, Zürich, Switzerland, June 10 – August 20, 2017

“Lari Pittman / Silke Otto-Knapp: Subject, Predicate, Object,” Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA, April 22 – May 27, 2017

“Monotones,” curated by Piper Marshall, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY, January 7 – February 25, 2017

 

2016

“Seascapes,” greengrassi, London
, UK, October 13 – December 21, 2016

 

2015

“Land lies in water,” Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario
, Canada, February 14 – July 19, 2015

 

2014

“Silke Otto-Knapp & Florian Pumhösl: Ratio of distance,” Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, November 22 – December 20, 2014

“Cold Climate,” Museo Marino Marini, Rome
, Italy, September 25 – November 8, 2014

“Seascapes and Moondresses,” curated by Cosima Rainer, Galerie der Stadt Schwaz, Schwaz / Tyrol, Austria, September 11 – October 26, 2014

“Questions of Travel,” Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz, Vienna, Austria, March 12 – May 25, 2014; Fogo Island Arts, Fogo Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, April 16 – August 31, 2014; catalogue

“
Monday or Tuesday,” Camden Arts Centre, London, UK, January 17 – March 30, 2014; catalogue

 

2013

“Geography and Plays,” curated by Jacob Frabricius, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark, September 20 – November 17, 2013; catalogue

“Seascapes,” Overduin & Kite, Los Angeles, CA, May 25 – June 29, 2013

 

2012

“North & South,” Daniel Buchholz, Berlin
, Germany, June 29 – August 25, 2012

 

2011

“A light in the moon / MATRIX 239,” UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA, September 30, 2011 – January 15, 2012

“Voyage Out,” greengrassi, London, UK, March 11 – April 30, 2011

“Lilac Garden (rehearsal),” Sadler’s Wells, London, UK, 2011

 

2010

“Many Many Women,” Kunstverein Munich, Munich, Germany, March 26 – May 23, 2010

“Interiors,” Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York, NY, January 1 – February 20, 2010

 

2009

“Standing anywhere in the space in a relaxed position,” Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre, Banff, Canada, July 25 – September 27, 2009; catalogue

“Present Time Exercise,” Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, UK, July 4 – September 13, 2009; catalogue

“Winterlong,” Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles, CA, February 15 – March 21, 2009

 

2007

“Quartets,” Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne, Germany, November 30, 2007 – January 19, 2008

“Rehearsal in yellow,” greengrassi, London
, UK, May 17 – June 16, 2007

 

2006

“Love in a void,” (with Jutta Koether), Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria, October 20 – December 3, 2006

“Standing anywhere in the space in a relaxed position,” Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, October 7 – November 4, 2006

“Figures And Groups,” Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York, NY, May 13 – June 17, 2006

 

2005

“50ft Queenie,” Art Now, Tate Britain, London
, UK, November 4, 2005 – January 15, 2006

 

2004

“Silke Otto-Knapp,” greengrassi, London, UK, July 1 – 31, 2004

 

2003

“25th Floor,” Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne, Germany, October 29 – December 6, 2003

“Orange view,” Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany, June 1 – August 24, 2003; catalogue

 

2002

Galerie Karin Guenther, Hamburg, Germany, 2002

 

2000

Galerie Karin Guenther, Hamburg, Germany, 2000

 

Selected Group Exhibitions:

 

2025    

“Fictions of Display,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, June 29, 2025 – March 1, 2026

“Performance on Paper,” Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, May 3 – August 10, 2025

 

2024

“Ei Arakawa-Nash: Paintings Are Popstars,” The National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan, October 30 – December 16, 2024

“Isa Mona Lisa,” Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany, October 18, 2024 — October 18, 2026

“To Exalt the Ephemeral: The (Im)permanent Collection,” Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA, August 14, 2024 – July 6, 2025

“Transmissions: Selections from the Marciano Foundation,” The Marciano Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, February 22, 2024

 

2023

“Joan Didion: What She Means,” Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL, July 13, 2023 – January 7, 2024

“I MET.

Recent Painting Acquisitions”, Mutina for Art collection, Fiorano Modenese, February 3 – July 21, 2023

 

2022

“Joan Didion: What She Means,” Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, October 9, 2022 – January 8, 2022

“Face-à-Face”, Mudam, Luxembourg, October 8, 2022 – April 2, 2023

“Reading a Wave”, Palomar, Pognana Lario, October 1 – November 20, 2022

“Movement: Expressive Bodies in Art,” National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON, Canada, September 2, 2022 – February 26, 2023

“Drawing Down the Moon”, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, June 19 – September 11, 2022

“Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer”, V&A Dundee, February 26 – September 4, 2022

 

2021

"An Ego of Her Own," Kaufmann Repetto, Milan, Italy, October 7 – November 12, 2021

“Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer, Barbican Centre, London, UK, October 7, 2020 – January 3, 2021; travels to V&A Dundee, Scotland, UK, 2022; catalogue

“Though It's Dark, Still I Sing,” 34th Bienal de São Paulo, Pavilhão Ciccillo Matarazzo, São Paulo, Brazil, September 4 – December 5, 2021

“Selections: Gallery Artists,” Regen Projects, Los Angeles, CA, June 5 – July 15, 2021

 

2019    

“Performer and Participant,” Tate Modern, London, UK, December 2019 – March 21, 2021

“STAGES 2019,” Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, Winnipeg, Canada, August 16 – September 2, 2019

 

2018

“Le spectacle du monde,” Château des Evêques, Monistrol-sur-Loire, France, September 20 – November 16, 2018

“Liverpool Biennial 2018: Beautiful world, where are you?,” Liverpool, UK, July 14 – October 28, 2018

“Class Reunion: Works from the Gaby and Wilhelm Schürmann Collection,” mumok, Vienna, Austria, June 23 – November 11, 2018; catalogue

“Vision Valley,” organized by The Pit, Brand Library & Art Center, Glendale, CA, May 5 – June 23, 2018

“Hummadruz,” Newlyn Art Gallery, Newlyn, UK, March 3 – June 2, 2018

“Inaugural Show,” The Gallery @ Michael's, Michael's, Santa Monica, CA, January 27 – March 31, 2018

 

2017

“Marching to the Beat,” Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, CA, July 14 – August 26, 2017

“Belonging to a Place: An Exhibition by Fogo Island Arts,” Scrap Metal, Toronto, Canada, June 22 – September 23, 2017; traveled to Art Gallery of the Canadian Embassy, Washington D.C., February 15 – March 27, 2018

“Chalk Circles,” REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA, June 17 – August 20, 2017

“A boat is a floating piece, toward the Horizon,” Alfonso Artiaco, Naples, Italy, June 8 – July 28, 2017

“Sashay with and without history,” Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Chicago, IL, June 4 – July 15, 2017

“Elizabeth McIntosh, Monique Mouton, Silke Otto-Knapp,” Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver, Canada, May 26 – July 8, 2017

"Serralves Collection: 1960-1980,” Serralves Foundation, Porto, Portugal, May 8, 2017 – January 21, 2018

“Spaces without drama or surface is an illusion, but so is depth,” Graham Foundation, Chicago, IL, February 16 – July 1, 2017

“Málverkasýning,” i8, Reykjavik, Iceland, February 9 – April 22, 2017

“Thinking Out Loud: Notes For An Evolving Collection,” The Warehouse, Dallas, TX, January 30 – April 30, 2017

“February,” Roberta Pelan, Toronto, Canada, January 8 – February 11, 2017

 

2016

“Moved,” Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, October 21 – November 19, 2016

“Putting Rehearsal to the test,” VOX, Montreal, September 1 – November 26, 2016

”Made in L.A.

2016: a, the, though, only,” Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, June 12 – August 28, 2016

“8 Femmes,” Office Baroque, Brussels, Belgium, April 16 – May 28, 2016

”A quoi tient la beauté des étreintes,” FRAC Auvergne, Clermont Ferrand, January 30 – March 26, 2016


”Pure Romance: Art and The Romantic Sensibility,” The Redfern Gallery, London, UK, February 2 – March 5, 2016

 

2015

“NO MAN’S LAND: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection,” Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL, December 2, 2015 – July 30, 2016; traveled to National Museum of Women in the Art, Washington D.C., September 30, 2016 – January 8, 2017; catalogue

“The Longest Bridge,” Off Vendome, New York, NY, June 7 – July 17, 2015

“A New Rhythm,” Park View, Los Angeles, CA, March 1 – April 5, 2015

 

2014

“The Sea,” curated by Jan Hoet, Mu.ZEE, Ostend, Belgium, October 23, 2014 – April 19, 2015

“The Drawing Biennial 2014,” Kunsthall, Oslo
, Norway, October 10 – November 23, 2014

“Sacré 101,” curated by Raphael Gygax, Migros Museum, Zürich, Switzerland, February 15 – May 11, 2014

 

2013

“
Why Painting Now?,” Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna
, Austria, October 11 – November 14, 2013

“Pleinarisme,” Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff
, Canada, July 13 – September 15, 2013; catalogue

“Portmanteau,” Johan Berggren Gallery, Malmö, Sweden, July 5 – August 17, 2013

“The Collection #3,” Belvedere 21, Vienna, Austria, June 21 – November 10, 2013

“Nur hier,” Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, Germany, January 18 – April 14, 2013

 

2012

“Janice Kerbel, Hilary Lloyd, Silke Otto-Knapp,” Koelnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany, November 3, 2012 – January 6, 2013


”Le Nouveau Pleinairisme,” curated by Kitty Scott, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Canada, March 15 – June 25, 2012; catalogue

 

2011

“Dance/Draw,” ICA, Boston, MA
, October 7, 2011 – January 16, 2012

“Quodlibet III-Alphabets & Instruments,” Galerie Buchholz, Berlin, Germany, September 9 – 24, 2011

“Captain Pamphile,” Deichtorhallen, Hamburg
, Germany, February 19 – April 10, 2011

“Watercolour,” Tate Britain, London
, UK, February 16 – August 21, 2011

“The Other Tradition,” (with Ei Arakawa)
, Wiels, Brussels, February 26 – May 1, 2011

The Artistʼs Institute, (with Jo Baer), New York, NY, January 30 – July 10, 2011

 

2010

“At Home/Not at Home,” Hessel Museum, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, September 26 – December 19, 2010

“Captain Pamphile,” Städtische Galerie Waldkraiburg, Waldkraiburg, Germany, September 24 – November 21, 2010; catalogue

“
I must say that at first it was difficult work,” curated by Will Bradley, Kunsthall, Oslo, Norway
, September 18 – October 24, 2010

“The Mass Ornament,” curated by John Rasmussen, Gladstone Gallery, New York, NY, June 25 – August 13, 2010

“Self-Conscious,” curated by Hilton Als and Peter Doig, VW (VeneKlasen Werner), Berlin, Germany, April 30 – June 26, 2010

“The Nice thing About Castillo/Corrales...,” Castillo/Corrales, Paris
, France, April 21 – May 22, 2010

“While Bodies Get Mirrored,” curated by Raphael Gygax, Migros Museum, Zürich, Switzerland, March 6 – May 30, 2010

“The Library of Babel/In and Out of Place,” Projectspace 176, London, UK, February 24 – June 13, 2010

 

2009

“Strange and Close,” curated by Charles Esche, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands, November 28, 2009 – March 21, 2010

“Das Gespinst,” Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany,
 September 13, 2009 – January 10, 2010

“Quodlibet II,” Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne, Germany, May 15 – August 29, 2009

”Privat,” Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, Germany, February 14 – May 18, 2009

“modern modern,” curated by Pati Hertling, Chelsea Art Museum, New York, NY, April 17 – June 13, 2009; catalogue

 

2008

“Pleinairism,” curated by Kitty Scott, i8, Reykjavik, Iceland, September 12 – October 12, 2008

“Rendez-Vous Nowhere,” curated by Beatriz Herraez, Montehermoso Cultural Center, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, September 26, 2008 – January 4, 2009

“Idealismusstudio,” Grazer Kunstverein, Graz
, Austria, October 4 – December 20, 2008

“Janice Kerbel, Silke Otto-Knapp, Allan Ruppersberg,” Karin Guenther, Hamburg, Germany, 2008

“Art Sheffield 08: Yes, No & Other Options,” curated by Jan Verwoet, Sheffield, UK, February 16 – March 30, 2008

 

2007

“Garten Eden,” Kunsthalle, Emden
, Germany, December 1, 2007 – March 30, 2008; catalogue

 

2006

“The Grande Promenade,” National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece, July 17 – September 29, 2006; catalogue

“Never for money, always for love,” Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, Austria, July 6 – August 31, 2006

”The Subversive Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands, March 18 – September 3, 2006

“Loveletter,” curated by Silke Otto-Knapp, Herald Street, London, UK, July 14 – August 6, 2006

 

2005

“The British Art Show 6,” BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK, September 24, 2005 – January 8, 2006; catalogue

“9th International Istanbul Biennial,” Deniz Palas Apartments, Beyoğlu
, Turkey, September 16 – October 30, 2005

“Paris-Londres: Le Voyage Interieur,” Espace EDF Electra, Paris
, France, November 16, 2005 – March 5, 2006

“Thinking of the Outside - New Art in the City of Bristol,” curated by Claire Doherty, Bristol, UK, May 21 – July 3, 2005; catalogue

“Andersen Associations,” Galleri Specta, Copenhagen
, Denmark, 2005

“René Daniels, Peter Doig, Silke Otto-Knapp,” Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York, NY, 2005

“We disagree,” Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, NY, January 29 – February 26, 2005

 

2004

“Must I Paint You a Picture?,” Haunch of Venison, London, UK, December 8, 2004 –  January 20, 2005

“Winter Show,” Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, Ireland, October 23 – November 20, 2004

“The Undiscovered Country,” Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, October 3, 2004 – January 16, 2005; catalogue

“Der Tod Und Das Mädchen,” Fortescue Avenue, London, UK, 2004

“
Teil 2 Quodlibet,” Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne
, Germany, September 3 – October 9, 2004

“Sugar Hiccup,” Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, August 13 – September 4, 2004

“Moon Absinthe,” nn foundation, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2004

”Étrangement Proche/Seltsam Vertraut,” Saarland Museum, Saarbrücken, Germany, June 11 – August 8, 2004; catalogue

 

2003

“Honey, I’ve rearranged the collection,” greengrassi, London, UK, 2003

“Creeping Revolution 2,” Rooseum, Malmö
, Sweden, 2003

“Picture Room,” Gasworks Gallery, London, UK, February 7 – March 23, 2003

“Deutschemalereizweitausendrei,” Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany, January 15 – April 13, 2003; catalogue

 

2002

“The Unique Phenomenon of a Distance,” Magnani, London, UK, 2002

“Metropolitan,” Galerie Jürgen Becker & Galerie Karin Guenther, Hamburg, Germany, 2002

“Hamburg: Imagining LA: Ed Ruscha, Silke Otto-Knapp,” Kunstverein, Wolfsburg, Germany, 2002

“Germinations 13: Get out!

As Otto-Knapp turned her attention more fully to landscapes, she began to work more frequently in black-and-white&#—“all the other colors somehow left my studio,” she told curator Sarah Koselich in 2020. “The beauty of Otto-Knapp’s paintings is in their light touch,” Paige K.

Bradley wrote in Artforum in 2014. Her many students will be forever changed by her honest generosity in support of their ideas and work as artists.”

Over a career that spanned more than two decades, Otto-Knapp’s work has been exhibited at galleries and museums in Berlin, Tokyo, Copenhagen, London, Istanbul and Boston, as well as Los Angeles.

Her work can be seen in the upcoming exhibition Joan Didion: What She Means at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and a solo project at Casa Mutina Milano, Italy.

ArtReviewNewsOctober 10, 2022artreview.com

Silke Otto-Knapp, known for her emotionally resonant watercolor-blurred canvases depicting fleeting human forms and vague landscapes, died at her home in Pasadena, California, on October 9 at the age of fifty-two of ovarian cancer.

“Otto-Knapp reimagines her muse’s artwork as a freestanding wall, a key element in this black-and-white theater in which viewers are cast as performers.”

Otto-Knapp taught for several years at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna; since 2015, she served as associate professor of painting and drawing at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The gossamer appearance of the watercolor canvases, often rendered in black-and-white and frequently themed around night skies, seascapes, and, most memorably, dance, invite viewers to spend time looking, effectuating a trancelike state. She majored in cultural studies at the University of Hildesheim before earning her MFA from Chelsea College of Art and Design (now the Chelsea College of Arts) in London.

News of her death was confirmed by Regen Projects, her Los Angeles gallery. Eschewing watercolor’s traditional ground of paper as too “illustrational,” Otto-Knapp instead embraced a process of addition and removal, drenching her canvases in the aqueous pigment and then washing away or adding paint to create lush, theatrical works that occupy a realm between figuration and abstraction.

Solo exhibitions are set to open this month at Galerie Buchholz in New York and next month at Casa Mutina Milano in Milan, Italy.

Born in 1970 in Osnabrück, Germany, Otto-Knapp grew up on a dairy farm, which led to a deep interest in nature and landscapes. “A pivotal reference for the exhibition is [Natalia] Goncharova’s Spring, 1927–28, a decorative screen covered in botanical motifs that was originally commissioned for the Arts Club of Chicago,” Hoberman wrote.

Works would often consist of several canvas panels slotted together, as a theatre set might be constructed.

On other occasions, the German artist turned her attention to stylised renderings of clouds, trees and architectural elements, with the effect of putting the viewer in the position of an actor before scenery. She received a degree in cultural studies from the University of Hildesheim and a master of fine arts from London’s Chelsea College of Art and Design, now known as the University of the Arts London.

Otto-Knapp died at her home in Pasadena.

Writing in Artforum on a 2020 exhibition of Otto-Knapp’s work at Chicago’s Renaissance Society, Mara Hoberman described the presentation of the works as having the appearance of stage set. Having by this time already discovered her preferred technique of applying watercolor to canvas and removing it with water or a dry sponge, Otto-Knapp began making works taking photographs as their reference and depicting barely seen people and places.

She was 52.

Otto-Knapp was a beloved faculty member and colleague in the art department since 2014 and an internationally renowned artist known for her poetic paintings, drawings and etchings.

Her large-scale paintings evoke near-abstract landscapes and seascapes as well as figurative paintings based on historical documentation of dance, performance and stage design.

“Silke’s incredible dedication to the department of art over this past decade makes this a profound and deeply felt loss for our community,” said Catherine Opie, the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Professor of Art at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.

Otto-Knapp’s “Seascape (with moon)” (2016) uses black and gray watercolors to depict silver islands and a moon floating in a vast black expanse of sea and sky.

Currently, a two-panel painting, “Monotone (Moonlit Scene after Samuel Palmer),” is included in “Joan Didion: What She Means,” a group exhibition opening Oct. 11 at the Hammer Museum. In her landscapes, many of Canada’s Fogo Island, and portraits of dancers&#—which became her main focus around the end of the aughts and spanned the Ballets Russes of 1923 through the late-’60s performances of Yvonne Rainer&#—her subjects glow luminously, taking on an eerie, almost ghostly appearance.

Her work is part of the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern and the Hammer Museum at UCLA.

Otto-Knapp’s work often engaged with the history of painting. “Her warmth, her commitment, and the beauty with which she pursued her work and teaching were monumental. Despite this stark palette, her works continued to radiate a warmth typically not associated with a flat lack of hue.