Idris Khan's work plays with authorship and repetition. His texturally rich composite prints are built from a series of images, both appropriated and original—such as Beethoven's complete sheet music, Bernd and Hilla Becher photographs, or William Turner postcards from Tate Britain—that are digitally layered and altered. Khan's films and sculptures are also concerned with originality and artistic relationships, as in the sculpture Listening to Glenn Gould's Version of the Goldberg Variations while thinking about Carl Andre (2010), a replica of Andre’s 1968 Fall, in which the steel plates are sand-blasted with Bach’s notation. Often linking religion, music, and poetry, Khan explores lyricism and spirituality using a Minimalist aesthetic.
Idris Khan's work plays with authorship and repetition. His texturally rich composite prints are built from a series of images, both appropriated and original—such as Beethoven's complete sheet music, Bernd and Hilla Becher photographs, or William Turner postcards from Tate Britain—that are digitally layered and altered. Khan's films and sculptures are also concerned with originality and artistic relationships, as in the sculpture Listening to Glenn Gould's Version of the Goldberg Variations while thinking about Carl Andre (2010), a replica of Andre’s 1968 Fall, in which the steel plates are sand-blasted with Bach’s notation. Often linking religion, music, and poetry, Khan explores lyricism and spirituality using a Minimalist aesthetic.
