Casey Kaplan
Frieze | Igshaan Adams Interweaves the Mundane with the Divine
At Casey Kaplan, New York, the South African artist transforms everyday materials into colossal tapestries inspired by movements that characterize the dances of his homeland
Besides the massive, suspended tableaux, Igshaan Adams’s studio in Cape Town, South Africa also accommodates a team of weavers from nearby townships and acts as a storehouse of bagged beads, polyester fibre, plastic shells, copper wire and wooden spheres — the detritus of a globalized garment industry otherwise destined for parts unknown. His current show at Casey Kaplan, ‘Vastrapplek’, is named for Vastrappers, the young dancers of an ancient celebratory form called Rieldans, whom Adams recorded from above, capturing the undulating whorls of dust kicked up in their wake. Those patterns are the compositional map for eight new multimedia tapestries and three more sculptural forms shown here (all works 2022). As with Adams’s reimagining of prayer mats and linoleum, they elaborate upon his interplay of gestures imprinted by the body and those interlaced by hand.
Ian Bourland
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