Igshaan Adams: Kicking Dust

Igshaan Adams’ art speaks of origin, religion and sexuality and it connects the proximate, the distant and the seemingly contradictory. Woven tapestries, filigree sculptures and expansive structures bridge opposites. They spin threads, hold and weave together ideas. His art is abstract, poetic and at the same time grounded in lived experience. It absorbs visitors yet leaves space and calm for reflection. The exhibition Kicking Dust is reminiscent of a garden or a park crisscrossed by visible and invisible paths, wishes and memories.

Kicking Dust, the title of the exhibition, refers to an indigenous South African dance that Adams observed as a child among his grandparents’ Nama community in the Northern Cape province. Described as ‘dancing in the dust’, the dance is a courtship ritual where clouds of dust erupt from the ground as performers energetically kick the dry ground. Throughout the exhibition, cloud-like sculptures made of spiralised wire and beads hover in space, resonating with the image of travelling dust picked up from the earth below. ‘Kicking dust’ can be understood as an allegory for art in general, as an activity that throws stuff in the air. Dust is nothing, dust is everything, it is, like time, unimportant and essential.

Curated by Tarini Malik (Hayward Gallery) and Daniel Baumann (Kunsthalle Zürich).