One of the most defining artists of his generation, Idris Khan (b. 1978) explores the lyrical, symbolic, and physical meanings of repetition. His works span media, from photography and video to painting and sculpture, and focus on gestures of repetition as a means of physically marking time, memory, loss, transformation, and ultimately, transcendence.
Idris Khan: Repeat After Me is the British artist’s first U.S. museum solo exhibition and traces Khan’s investigations across time and media. Showcasing major works covering every facet of the artist’s career, the exhibition also inaugurates a never-before-seen body of paintings Khan created expressly for the presentation at the Museum. In these works, Khan synthesizes his earliest concerns with photographic reproduction while delving into the integral role of color in iconic masterworks of art history and our memories of them.
Khan’s first forays into photography focused on digital accumulation and combined collections of images into single photographic prints, such as in Every…Bernd and Hilla Becher Spherical Type Gasholder (2004). He later expanded on these conceptually rigorous investigations and physically stamped layers of his own words onto canvas, glass, and paper. These paintings teem with words, symbols, and musical notes, placing the verbal and lyrical side by side.
Khan’s most recent explorations turn to the language of color and its ability to contain and release a world of memories, associations, and emotions. He combines jewel-like colors with delicately stained sheet music, layered on top of rich, stamped surfaces; the musical marks and fugues of pigment create a shimmering harmony—a colorful, sonic rhythm.
The exhibition is curated by Marcelle Polednik, PhD, Donna and Donald Baumgartner Director of the Milwaukee Art Museum.