Idris Khan: A Memory… After Bach’s Cello Suites

Concerned with repetition and memory, A Memory… After Bach’s Cello Suites is a layered film in which cellist Gabriella Swallow plays excerpts from Bach’s Six Suites for the Cello Solo. Khan’s fascination with Bach’s Cello Suites is rooted in the fact that a number of different versions have been published and each performer brings their own knowledge and interpretation, so these fragments of music are repeated but never the same.

A Memory… After Bach’s Cello Suites is a natural progression from Khan’s photographic works which use repetitive images from single appropriated sources such as pages of the Koran, sheet music by Beethoven or paintings by Turner. One subtly different page is layered after another, revealing the passage of time and the artist’s own hand.