British artist Idris Khan’s densely- layered imagery inhabits the space between abstraction and figuration, encompassing aspects of history, cumulative experience, and the metaphysical collapse of time into a single moment. Over the years, the artist has developed a unique narrative, drawing on diverse cultural sources including art, literature, philosophy, and music. For Quartet (2019) Khan uses enlarged fiber-printed pages of sheet music mounted on aluminum and gesso panel as the ground for a series of abstract oil stick paintings. The notation of the music itself is blocked out by an impasto, expressive application of black and blue oil paint and gesso, leaving visible only very high and low musical notes, dynamics, and articulation marks. Music is often seen as an abstract representation of human emotions. Notation systems are a further means of abstraction; an attempt to translate and render the ephemeral, timebased sound replicable and conservable. However, like emotions, the experience of music can neither be repeated nor relived. Khan’s Quartet eloquently speaks of this impossibility emphasizing the silence of the material, while at the same time using it for a new creation; a new composition with its own rhythm and expressiveness.



Gesso and oil stick on black and white fibre print mounted on aluminum panel 77.3 × 52.7 × 1.5 cm Framed: 79 × 54.4 × 4 cm



Starting bid: € 7.000.– ( Low estimate: € 14.000 - High estimate: € 21.000 )

Legend key "G" as in Conditions of Sale

Category:: Contemporary Art