Idris Khans Photographic Practice - Essay Example

Idris Khan’s Every Page of the Holy Koran Photograph manipulation is growing increasingly popular in this day and age, especially the use of graphicsediting programs such as Adobe Photoshop. Even though dark room manipulation has existed and has been practiced for many years, digital manipulation is easier and less tedious. Originality of digital photographs is often questioned by photographers and the audience due to such techniques. Bourriaud (2002, p. 1) states that ‘since the early nineties, an ever increasing number of artworks have been created on the basis of preexisting works; more and more artists interpret, reproduce, re-exhibit, or use works made by others or available cultural products. This art of postproduction seems to respond to the proliferating chaos of global culture in the information age, which is characterized by an increase in the supply of works and the art world’s annexation of forms ignored or disdained until now’. Idris Khan is a British artist and photographer, born in 1978 in Birmingham, United Kingdom. His mother is a trained pianist and professionally a nurse and his father is a doctor. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Derby and Master of Fine Art from the Royal College of Art. He is a non practising Muslim, much to his parents’ disgust. He claims to have a spiritual relationship with Islam but not an educational one (Lord, 2009). Idris Khan’s artwork comprises of uniting books, mystical texts, philosophical work, psychoanalytical criticism, and sheets of music by superimposition of their digital photographs or scanned images. He does not appropriate works of art, history, literature and music on a thematic basis. He aims to see each page of a text at the same time, hear every note of a piece of music at the same instant and view each work of an artist at the same time. The resulting artwork does not resemble a digital photograph, instead a charcoal sketch or a pavement drawing. Nicholas Bourriand’s concerns are applicable to Khan’s artwork as well as many other artists’ work. Khan’s creation of artwork is a tedious process of turning pages of books and musical scores, scanning page after page, hunting for any mark of individuality among the well-organized printed lines, taking photographs of artwork, and using Photoshop to superimpose the individual scans or photographs to create the unison of incomprehensible words, marks, and lines. He refers to this process as being a “palimpsest: the habit of ancient Greeks and Romans to reuse manuscripts by scraping off the texts and writing again over the top, leaving a textual residue embossed in the background of the page. ‘When you layer things, you’re deleting something all the time,’ says Khan. ‘But you’re also adding something new. I try and keep an element from every page that I scan, whether it’s a mark or a detail or a misprint just outside of the square of text. Every choice is different for each page, and I think that’s the art of what I do.’” (Lord, 2009). According to Geoff Dyer (2006), “Criticism sometimes achieves the condition of art; certain works of art are also a form of commentary or criticism.” If one was a writer, one would have written a book in response to a text that primarily shapes the way a medium is regarded but if one is a photographer and the medium in question is a camera, things would be quite different. It seems that Khan’s Every Page of Roland Barthe’s book Camera Lucida is his criticism of, commentary on or maybe even homage to the book itself. He photographed each and every page in the book and digitally combined all the pages to form a single, composite image, a palimpsest. Time as a theme does not seem to be a consideration when it comes to Idris Khan’s art work. What he achieves is elimination of the stillness of a photograph. He brings a photograph to life, so to speak. His work is not frozen in time, rather, it is a combination of many moments created over time. Khan perhaps intends to provoke all sorts of discussions in response to his artwork; hence he integrates a wide spectrum of Western and Eastern culture to create it. Some of his artwork can be thought of as a cultural and thematic amalgamation because a book talks about numerous themes and highlights many issues. Every... page of the Holy Koran was inspired by Khan’s father. Even though he, as mentioned earlier, is not a practicing Muslim anymore, he claims that the Holy Koran had great importance in his childhood. It took him two months to create this piece. He handled the book with the prescribed care and scanned every page of the Holy book and layered the scans on top of one another with altered opacity. The resulting image is shown in Appendix I. The blackness at the sides and centre of the image is a result of the scanning and layering process but it is, however beautiful and it symbolises the mystical and overwhelming nature of the Divine at the centre of spirituality. Idris Khan admits that he has trouble reading because he gets easily distracted by and too involved in the images. (Photoslaves, 2007) In fact, he states that his repetitive form of making art has been hugely influenced by the practice of Islamic scholars of reading the same page of the Holy Koran again and again. He refers to this practice as a rhythm. Perhaps the act of making a palimpsest out of this Holy book mirrors the hidden spirituality of the artist. The process flipping pages and searching for tiny abnormalities in each page symbolises religious and spiritual dedication in Khan, his rhythm. One point of view about Khan’s work is that it represents what eventually happens to all artwork, may it be literature, fine art or music. It is admired, criticized, studied, discussed, analyzed, copied, and reproduced. In short, it is reinterpreted. Even though what he does can be perceived as a postproduction process, it is actually just a unification of the effects time has on artwork, it is a reinterpretation. The Holy Koran is a sacred Book and many people in this world believe that it holds the answers to the numerous mysteries of life and beyond. Khan has taken this sacred Book, which has been discussed, scrutinized and admired for centuries and merged all of its pages and wisdom into one piece of art. When one looks at the resulting piece of art, it is mesmerising. Many people do not know the language in which the Book is written. In fact, Khan admits to know how to read the language but not understand it. The blackness in the centre can be perceived to represent the vast knowledge that can be obtained from the Holy Koran. This particular piece of art shows the overlaying of language that he could only read, not understand. perhaps the frustration of not being able to understand what was written and the dedication of reading the Book over and over again lead to his obsession with creating pieces of art through a tedious process of amalgamating other pieces of art. Khan’s religious and spiritual inclination is evident in his recent artwork called Seven Times, which is shown in Appendix I. According to The 405 (2010), “This time though, instead of being built up, the lines of Islamic scripture, used for this piece, have been sandblasted out of steel cubes. The Arabic words, rendered abstract as they multiply, leave soft, poetics lines in the hard metal boxes. The words are the prayers that Muslims say five times a day. The layout of the cubes is a replica of The Kaaba, the ancient structure inside the Grand Mosque in Mecca, which Muslims face during those prayers.” Khan’s focus has moved from simple layering of scanned and digital photographs to sculpturing. Khan is a cultural archaeologist of sorts. He searches and digs for new meaning in old pieces of artwork. In a way, he gives people a chance to connect with pieces of art easily available to them. Even if one is not good at writing, playing an instrument, sketching or painting, she or he should be given a chance to enjoy the essence of the above mentioned forms of art. Idris Khan himself could not paint but what he does with his photographs creates the feel of a painting. Even if he or anyone else cannot memorize musical scores and beautifully reproduce them in front of an audience, they can enjoy the beauty by looking at one of his works because he compressed it all into one image. Khan takes pieces of art easily accessible to the public and compresses them into one piece of beautiful, mystical art. There are people who regard his work to be a waste of time and unoriginal. On the other hand, there are people who regard his work to be beautiful, mystical and cultural amalgamation. His originality of thought is manifested in his artwork in a very unique manner. Appendix I. Figures Figure 1. Every ... page of the Holy Koran Figure 2. Seven Times References Bourriaud, Nicolas., 2002. Postproduction Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World. New York. Lucas & Sternberg. Dyer, Geoff., 2006. Between the Lines. The Guardian, [internet] 2 September. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2006/sep/02/art [Accessed 3 May 2010] Khan, Idris., 2007. My best shot. The Guardian, [internet] 2 August. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2007/aug/02/arts [Accessed 3 May 2010] Lord, Chris., 2009. Elementa Free Zone Gallery. Time Out Dubai, [internet] 9 March. Available at: http://www.timeoutdubai.com/art/features/7067-elementa-free-zone-gallery [Accessed 3 May 2010] Photoslaves., 2009. Idris Khan’s multi layered photos. Photo Slaves [internet] 28 September. Available at: http://photoslaves.com/idris-khan%E2%80%99s-multi-layered-photos/ [Accessed 3 May 2010] Soutter, Lucy., 2006. Writing. Victoria Miro Gallery, [internet] 30 September. Available at: http://lucysoutter.com/writing/khan.htm [Accessed 3 May 2010] The 405. 2010. A Thousand Words: Idris Khan. The 405 [internet] 30 March. Available at: http://thefourohfive.com/reviews/1816 [Accessed 3 May 2010] Read More