Igshaan Adams (South African, Born 1982) Prada Iv, 2015
Provenienza : [Propriété non datée]
- Aspire Art Auctions Inaugural Cape Auction, March 2017, Lot 178; A private collection
- Exhibited Cape Town, blank projects; Parda; (June - August 2016); Norway, Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, KUBATANA, (May - September 2019)
- Literature J
- Higgins & R
- Simbao, Igshaan Adams
- Cape Town: blank projects, (Blank Projects), p. 93
- (illustrated)
- Igshaan Adams embodies his captivatingly unruly and strikingly optic textiles in Prada IV, an exceptional example of the artist's ethos
- The present work explores the complexities of identity through weaving
- Navigating his personal identity through his work, Adams investigates themes of religion, race, and sexuality within himself, as well as his place in the world
- Born and raised in South Africa during the Apartheid of the 1980s, Adams observes the hybridity of his identity, as a mixed-race homosexual man from a family of different religious practises in an environment where categorisation of society was intensely concentrated. 'Navigating my way around the expectations imbedded within stereotypes of my social roles, I continue to search for new understanding, new ways of seeing my combination of identities.' (Igshaan Adams)
- Prada IV is a symbolically and metaphorically rich piece
- The title itself refers to a veil or shroud, a mask concealing something from the lens of the world, displaying the boundary between one creates around them
- The Muslim iconography of the present world indeed reflects Adams own religion and, raised by Christian grandparents, the sense of an intertwined narrative is evoked from the woven textiles
- The tassels drooping from the work echo the appearance of Islamic prayer mats
- Furthermore, Adams equates the act of weaving itself as having correlations with the action of prayer, explaining in his view that ' it leads to the same result internally'
- The commonality of repetition and 'great consciousness and understanding'that the two actions share and also share an emotional navigation for Adams; ' internally what happens is you have to push against the feeling of wanting to give up, it's quite daunting to take on the task of weaving something huge', 'its something I experience when I pray too.' Adams therefore encapsulates the fluidity and malleability of identity, how one can both assemble and undo characteristics to enable an understanding of themselves throughout life
- As the artist explains, 'need to unearth, unmask and unveil the mysteries hidden within the depths of the Self, beyond race, class, religion, sexual orientation, and gender
- Who am I, beyond my identity?'
- Through his work, Adams aims to deep-dive into his subconscious and his position in the cultural tapestry and imbedded ideologies
- Holding his first UK solo show in 2021 at the Hayward Gallery, Kicking Dust, and currently on view at The Hepworth Wakefield with Weerhound until November 2024, Adams creates immersive installations with a focus on his weaving technique and textile art
- With an extensive list of solo exhibitions globally, Adams' work is also included in the permanent collections at the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; the Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Art Institute of Chicago; Baltimore Museum of Art; Inhotim Museum, Brazil; Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Standard Bank collection, Johannesburg; and the University of Cape Town
- Igshaan Adams, transcript from 'Møt Igshaan Adams', Nitja senter for samtidskunst, (YouTube, 2019)
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