Igshaan Adams

Igshaan Adams (born 1982) is a South African artist working on tapestries and textile-based sculptures, installations, and performance. His work has been included in the 59th Venice Biennale: The Milk of Dreams, in 2022; and the 2023 São Paulo Biennial: Choreographies of the Impossible. He grew up in the suburb of Bonteheuwel, located on the Cape Flats southeast of Cape Town. Bonteheuwel was a segregated site and created in apartheid-South Africa era of racial segregation for residents of multiracial communities.

Education Igshaan Adams attended Ruth Prowse School of Art in Cape Town, South Africa.

Religion Igshaan Adams was born to a Muslim father and a Christian mother, and he was raised by his Christian grandparents.

Sexuality Adams struggled with the conflict associated between his homosexuality and his paternal religion of Islam. He practised abstinence for two years in an attempt to balance the two estranged identities. The pursuit of his religious integrality being present in his pursuit of art opposes the narratives that seek to separate gay identity and religion as a means to be free from religious and sexual persecution.

Career Adams creates large-scale tapestries, wall and floor installations made of plastic, fabric, textile, and other everyday materials such washcloths and garden fencing. Much of their work is informed by childhood memories, family relationships, the house they grew up in and the surrounding community. Exhibitions In 2019, his work was included in the group show In This Imperfect Present Moment at the Seattle Art Museum.

Igshaan Adams's first solo exhibition in the United States, Getuie, took place at the SCAD Museum of Art, at the School of Art and Design, Savannah, in 2020. For the show, the artist used linoleum flooring removed from working-class houses in Cape Town in his installation.

Adams work was included in the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani.

In 2023, Adams participated in the São Paulo Art Biennial, Brazil, for the first time. Their work is going to be showcased next to international artists such as Torkwase Dyson, Ellen Gallagher, Elizabeth Catlett, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Wifredo Lam, Dayanita Singh, and Deborah Anzinger, among many others.

Most recent presentations of Adams work includes Lynloop, a monumental installation commissioned for the lobby at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts, in 2024. Using Google Earth imagery to ground his work, the installation is a representation of the footpaths between a sports field and a social space in the town of Heideveld, Cape Town.

In 2024, his solo show Igshaan Adams: Weerhoud took place at the Hepworth Wakefield museum, in West Yorkshire.

In 2025, Adams debuted a show, Igshaan Adams: I've been here all along, I've been waiting, at the Hill Art Foundation.

Collections Igshaan Adams work is featured in the collection of the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida; the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA), Minnesota.

Awards In 2018 he was the winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art in South Africa. Adams was awarded an artist-in-residence program by the Zeitz MOCAA, South Africa.