That British artist Idris Khan's first U.S. survey exhibition debuts at the Milwaukee Art Museum, in the first U.S. building designed by Santiago Calatrava, says a lot about Milwaukee.
But that's not why you should see “Idris Khan: Repeat After Me,” which catalogs more than two decades of work by the Birmingham-born, London-based multi-disciplinary artist.
The exhibition is open now in the main Baker/Rowland Galleries, where it remains through Aug. 11.
The artist – who was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to art – is here for the opening and I spotted him both yesterday and today in the show.
"Repeat After Me," curated by Donna and Donald Baumgartner Director of the Milwaukee Art Museum Marcelle Polednik, Ph.D., shows the breadth of Khan's work, including photography, painting, video, sculpture and beyond.
There are composite photographs – multiple images printed atop one another – that almost look like graphite sketches. Others are compilations of vacation photographs and paintings, like the oddly beautiful "Every... William Turner postcard from Tate Britain" (pictured below) and "Caravaggio...... The Final Years."
These works open the in-depth show and provide a perfect foundation, because regardless of the medium, Khan seems to always be exploring layers and the results of compiling and layering.
Further along, we see paintings that reveal themselves to be constructed of words and phrases, rubber stamped one atop the other. Other works are layered musical scores.
Some of the sculptures represent literal stacks of photographs, though we don't actually see the content of those photos.
In one gallery, there is a striking set of images that appear to be splatters of paint. Only upon closer inspection do we realize that these are explosions of text.
Which brings us to another through-line: language. Words abound, as do the notes of the language of music, in Khan's oeuvre.
Like at least one other notable artist, Khan has had a "blue period" and one gallery highlights the work created during that time.
In the last gallery is Khan's latest work: a series of paintings made specifically for this show, inspired by historical works, including Francisco de Zurbaran's "Saint Francis of Assisi in His Tomb," which is one of the masterworks in MAM's collection.
That inspiration reveals itself in color schemes and via musical notes that Khan created using a digital program that converts colors into sound.
“This exhibition builds on the Milwaukee Art Museum’s history of identifying groundbreaking artists and giving them a platform to present their work,” said Polednik.
“Khan’s practice condenses human experience into images that are both tactile and conceptual, imbued with echoes and reverberations that evoke the flow of time in an innovative way. With this exhibition, the museum invites our community to engage with Khan's poetic vision of memory and history.”
There will also be an exhibition catalog published, and a series of events.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
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