Introduction
Idris Khan (born 1978) is a British artist based in London.
Khan's work draws from a diverse range of cultural sources including literature, history, art, music and religion to create densely layered imagery that is both abstract and figurative and addresses narratives of history, cumulative experience and the metaphysical collapse of time into single moments.
Life and career
Khan graduated from the University of Derby in 2001, he studied for an MA at the Royal College of Art in 2004.
Khan's photographs or scans originate from secondary source material – for instance, every page of the Qur'an, every Beethoven sonata, every William Turner postcard from Tate Britain, or every Bernd and Hilla Becher spherical gasholder. Khan's interest in Islam and layered imagery can be traced back to his upbringing. Khan is a Muslim by origin. His father is from Pakistan. His mother converted to Islam after meeting his father. It was his father's idea that Khan – himself a non-practicing Muslim – photograph every page of the Qur'an. His work and process have been described as "experiments in compressed memories" and "all-encompassing composites." As Khan describes: "It is a challenge to not define my work as a photograph but using the medium of photography to create something that exists on the surface of the paper and not to be transported back to an isolated moment in time."
Khan's visual layering also occurs in his videos, such as Last Three Piano Sonatas…after Franz Schubert, a three-channel video installation wherein he uses multiple camera angles to capture numerous performances of Schubert's last sonatas, composed on his deathbed.
In 2012, Khan was commissioned by the British Museum in London to create a new wall drawing for the exhibition, Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam. In addition to the wall drawing, a sculpture was installed in the museum’s Great Court. Also in 2012, The New York Times Magazine commissioned Khan to create a new body of work that was published in their London issue, focusing on iconic sites.
Selected exhibitions
- Still Revolution: Suspended in Time, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, May–June 2009. Group exhibition with Khan, Barbara Astman, Walead Beshty, Mat Collishaw, Stan Douglas, Trevor Paglen, Martha Rosler, and Mikhael Subotzky.
- K20 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Solo exhibition.
- Göteborgs Konsthall, Sweden. Solo exhibition.
- Taidehalli in Helsinki
- Photographic Dialogues between Past, Present and Future, Musée de l'Élysée, Switzerland, 2016. Group exhibition.
- Conflicting Lines, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, 2015. Solo exhibition.
- Saatchi Gallery in London
- "Still Revolution: Suspended in Time". Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. 28 April 2009. Retrieved 2 September 2016.
- http://www.elysee.ch/en/exhibitions-and-events/expositions/the-memory-of-the-future/
- Saatchi Gallery Biography: Idris Khan
Collections
Khan's work is held in the following permanent collections:
- Saatchi Collection, London
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
- Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
- Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel
- Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
- Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
- de young, San Francisco, CA
- Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris