In the waiting room

Solveig Øvstebø, the Renaissance Society’s Executive Director and Chief Curator, leads an informal tour of Silke Otto-Knapp’s solo exhibition, In the waiting room.

In the waiting room presents a group of new large-scale paintings by Silke Otto-Knapp, situated within an arrangement of free-standing custom display structures to form a kind of multidimensional stage set within the gallery. Otto-Knapp’s paintings carry a certain enigmatic quality, the seeming simplicity of the reduced compositions belied by their layered, diaphanous surfaces and a powerful sense of atmosphere. Hovering between figuration and abstraction, they deal in intimation more than narrative, hinting at scenarios with their own strange, choreographed logic without ever charting the steps.