Idris Khan
b. 1978, United Kingdom
Idris Khan was born in Birmingham, England, in 1978. He studied photography at the University of Derby and completed his Master's Degree in Fine Art at the Royal College of Art in London in 2004.
In 2018 Khan created the British Museum’s first site-specific work; 21 Stones, an installation of twenty one unique paintings, displayed as a scattered formation on a dedicated wall in the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World. Previous solo exhibitions include New Art Gallery Walsall, Walsall (2017); Whitworth Gallery, Manchester (2016 and 2012); Sadler's Wells, London (2011); Gothenburg Konsthall, Sweden (2011); Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto (2010); Kunsthaus Murz, Murzzuschlag, Austria (2010) and K20, Düsseldorf (2008).
In 2012, Khan was commissioned by the British Museum, London, to create a new wall drawing for the exhibition, Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam. In the same year The New York Times Magazine commissioned five photographic works by Khan for their London issue, including London Eye, which featured on the cover of the magazine. In 2014 Khan collaborated with choreographer Wayne McGregor to produce a stage design for Switzerland's contemporary dance biennale. In 2016, Khan's The UAE Memorial, a permanent public monument commissioned by the United Arab Emirates, was unveiled in the Abu Dhabi Memorial Park. A major public sculpture for London by Khan, commissioned by St George’s Plc with London Borough of Southwark as part of the development of One Blackfriars, was unveiled in Autumn 2019. In 2017 Khan was awarded an OBE for services to art.
His work is held in numerous public collections across the world, including the Saatchi Collection, London; British Museum, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel; Musée National des Beaux Arts, Québec; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; de Young Museum, San Francisco; and Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.
In 2023 Khan is scheduled to have his first career survey exhibition in the United States, at Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin.
Idris Khan lives and works in London.