When and how do we address subjects as race and nationality in the global contemporary art context? The Canon should never be cast in stone. The current times call for new definitions and wording that are accepted and intelligible by all working in the arts internationally. Wording that reflects our time, is decolonized, inclusive and self-evident of our global context.
I think performative actions carry immediacy, and I think performative actions carry immediate connectivity just the way music does, but I think all art forms do this, can do this, it depends on how you utilise this.
Arriving in the Netherlands was shocking. Because I realized immediately, something I oddly enough had never experienced before: that I am African. It was the first time I ever sat foot outside of South Africa and I had always just thought of myself as that kid that loved to read and draw and listen to pop music. That was my identity. When I arrived in the Netherlands, none of that mattered. People focused on my Africaness solely.
His works grow out of guns to become much more than that. A presentation of his sculptures together with his drawings in one of the large rooms of, say, PS1 could clarify the broader view of the artist.
Using found material to make statements about the intimacy between sexuality, religion and race Adams’ oeuvre renews our interests in topical subjects in ways that beckon us to pay attention to subtly sustained institutionalized bigotries and discontinuities.