Thomas Dane Gallery has announced its representation of Igshaan Adams, working in collaboration with blank projects and Casey Kaplan. The gallery will present a solo exhibition of new work by Adams in London, opening Tuesday 10 October 2023, to coincide with Frieze London.

Igshaan Adams (b. 1982, Cape Town) lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.

Adams’ cross-disciplinary practice combines aspects of weaving, sculpture and installation, drawing on his background to contest racial, sexual and religious boundaries. This intersectional topography remains visible throughout his practice and serves as a palimpsest in which traces of personal histories are inscribed and reinscribed. He explains: “I’m interested in the personal stories recorded on the surface. What is recorded is not necessarily always a factual account but can be what is imagined - a combination of myth-making and meaning-making.”

Adams approaches materiality through his own subjectivity; cultural and religious references are used in conjunction with surfaces that have always been present throughout his life: thread, beads, wire, linoleum, cotton twine, fabric. His interest in the material oscillates between the intuitive process of handling different substances, and a formal inquiry into how various materials behave in different contexts and how they transfigure or evolve.

Notable solo exhibitions include: The Art Institute of Chicago (2022); Kunsthalle Zürich (2022); Hayward Gallery, London (2021); SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah GA (2020); Akershus Kunstsenter, Oslo (2019); and The Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town (2018). Adams participated in the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, 2022, curated by Cecilia Alemani, and is currently exhibiting as part of the Islamic Arts Biennale 2023 in Jeddah.

His works are represented in the permanent collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; The 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.