Pio Abad
{{Short description|Filipino artist}}
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| birth_date = 1983|7|20
| birth_place = Manila
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| spouse = Frances Wadsworth Jones
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Pio Abad (born 1983) is a Filipino visual artist based in London.{{Cite news |last=Jr |first=Carlos Quijon |date=2022-05-19 |title=Imelda Marcos’s jewellery becomes art in the work of Pio Abad |url=https://www.ft.com/content/169aff31-2c6f-497f-b60a-0d4704138b8d |access-date=2024-09-17 |work=Financial Times}}
Early life and education
Pio Abad was born in Manila, Philippines. He grew up in the final years of the Marcos era, and his parents were both political activists who played key roles in the social democratic movement that toppled the dictatorship.{{Cite web |title=Artist Pio Abad Awakens the Spectres of Philippine History |url=https://artreview.com/artist-pio-abad-awakens-the-spectres-of-philippine-history/ |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=artreview.com |language=en}}
Abad began his studies in Fine Art at the University of the Philippines, before moving to Glasgow to study Painting and Printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art.{{Cite web |title=Interview with artist Pio Abad |url=https://www.britishcouncil.ph/study-uk/alumni/pio-abad |access-date=September 17, 2024 |website=British Council}}
In 2012, he graduated with a Masters in Fine Art at the Royal Academy of Arts.{{Cite web |title=Pio Abad {{!}} Artist {{!}} Royal Academy of Arts |url=https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/pio-abad |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=www.royalacademy.org.uk}}
Work
His parents campaigned for justice during a time of conflict and corruption under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, and it is the need to remember this history that has shaped the foundations of his work.{{Cite web |title=Pio Abad, Delaine Le Bas, Claudette Johnson, Jasleen Kaur |url=https://ocula.com/institutions/tate-britain/exhibitions/turner-prize-2024/ |access-date=September 17, 2024 |website=Ocula}} Abad's works are part of a number of important collections including Tate, UK; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Hawai’i State Art Museum, Honolulu and Singapore Art Museum. He has also participated in Is it morning for you yet?, The 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2022) {{Cite web |last=Watlington |first=Emily |date=2022-11-09 |title=Abstracting the Political: The 58th Carnegie International |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/aia-reviews/58th-carnegie-international-1234645900/ |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=ARTnews.com |language=en-US}} In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire, 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennial, Kerala (2022); To Make Wrong/Right/Now, 2nd Honolulu Biennial, Hawaii (2019),{{Cite web |date=2019-04-12 |title=Artist recreates exiled dictator's treasure trove in 3D—but what happened to the originals? |url=https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2019/04/12/artist-recreates-exiled-dictators-treasure-trove-in-3dbut-what-happened-to-the-originals |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=The Art Newspaper - International art news and events}} and Imagined Nations/Modern Utopias, 12th Gwangju Biennial, Korea (2018).
= The Collection of Jane Ryan and William Saunders =
The Collection of Jane Ryan and William Saunders is an ongoing research project that spans a number of solo and group exhibitions from 2014. The project draws attention to the roles that certain artifacts have played in the recent history of the Philippines, specifically in shaping the cultural legacy of former Philippine dictators Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and the absurd postcolonial ideology they enforced under the auspices of capitalist democracies during the Cold War. Using inexpensive reproduction techniques, Abad recreates items from their lavish collection of Regency-era silverware, old master paintings of uneven quality and dubious provenance and, curiously, Yugoslav naïf paintings on glass.{{Cite web |title=The Collection of Jane Ryan and William Saunders |url=https://www.pioabad.com/the-collection-of-jane-ryan-and-william-saunders |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=Pio Abad |language=en-US}}
Part of this long-term artistic project is a sculptural collaboration with Abad's wife, the jewelry designer Frances Wadsworth Jones, concerning Imelda Marcos’ jewellery collection. Since 2017, they have been reconstructing the Marcos jewellery collection one facet at a time. The work comments on power, corruption and the ownership of material objects. Jane Ryan and William Saunders were the pseudonyms adopted by Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos in 1968 to set up a Swiss bank account that notoriously became a depository for funds diverted from the Philippine treasury for their private benefit. In Abad and Wadsworth Jones's collection, "the jewels exist not as luxurious accessories but as a spectral line-up that hovers between evidence and effigy, carrying with it the painful history of a nation".{{Cite web |last=Tate |title=‘The Collection of Jane Ryan & William Saunders‘, Pio Abad, Frances Wadsworth Jones, 2019 |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/abad-wadsworth-jones-the-collection-of-jane-ryan-william-saunders-t15771 |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=Tate |language=en-GB}} The work was exhibited at the Honolulu Biennial and Jameel Arts Centre, and was acquired by the Tate in 2021.{{citation needed|date= September 2024}}
In 2019, his exhibition at KADIST San Francisco, Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite, "examine[d] the political consequences of Ferdinand Marcos's dictatorship in the Philippines, and its effects abroad."{{Cite web |last=Wilson |first=Emily |date=2019-07-29 |title=Mediating the Consequences of a Former Filipino Dictator |url=https://hyperallergic.com/510707/mediating-the-consequences-of-a-former-filipino-dictator/ |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=Hyperallergic |language=en-US}}
== Ateneo Art Gallery exhibition ==
In 2022, he exhibited Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts at the Ateneo Art Gallery, which opened weeks before the late Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos' son Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. won the Philippine presidential election.{{Cite web |last=Jr |first=Carlos Quijon |date=2022-09-01 |title=Pio Abad |url=https://www.artforum.com/events/pio-abad-250264/ |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=Artforum |language=en-US}}
The exhibition was a culmination of Abad's ten-year project examining the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, employing a wide variety of media from the traditional forms of painting and photography to new innovations such as 3D printing and augmented reality.{{Cite web |last=Gallery |first=Ateneo Art |date=2024-01-01 |title=Pio Abad: Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts |url=https://ateneoartgallery.com/exhibitions/pio-abad-fear-of-freedom-makes-us-see-ghosts |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=Ateneo Art Gallery |language=en}}
=== Monograph ===
His artist monograph Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts was published in 2024 by Hato Press and Ateneo Art Gallery.{{Cite web |title=Pio Abad: ‘I want to seduce people towards knowledge’ |url=https://ocula.com/magazine/conversations/pio-abad-i-want-to-seduce-people-towards-knowledge/ |website=Ocula}}
= To Those Sitting in Darkness =
In 2024, Abad's solo exhibition To Those Sitting in Darkness opened at The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England. His works are exhibited together with select works by other artists such as Filipino artist Carlos Villa, as well as objects from Oxford collections, chosen by the artist.{{citation needed|date= September 2024}}
The exhibition "maps one example of how art can trouble institutional norms through interference and imaginative reconstruction".{{Cite web |last=Bennes |first=Crystal |date=2024-07-15 |title=Pio Abad Reclaims Mapping to Retell Histories of Empire |url=https://www.frieze.com/article/pio-abad-sitting-darkness-2024-review |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=Frieze |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=2024-04-24 |title=Turner Prize hits 40 with a shortlist that includes Claudette Johnson and Pio Abad |url=https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/04/24/turner-prize-hits-40-with-a-shortlist-that-includes-claudette-johnson-and-pio-abad |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=The Art Newspaper - International art news and events}}
Awards and Nominations
In 2024, he was nominated for the Turner Prize for his exhibition To Those Sitting in Darkness at The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.{{Cite web |title=ASHMOLEAN NOW: PIO ABAD |url=https://www.ashmolean.org/exhibition/ashmolean-now-pio-abad-those-sitting-in-darkness |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=www.ashmolean.org |language=en}}{{Cite news |last=Searle |first=Adrian |date=2024-04-24 |title=This Turner prize shortlist is one in the eye for petty nationalists |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/apr/24/turner-prize-shortlist |access-date=2024-09-17 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}
Sam Thorne, a jury member running the Japan House cultural center in London, said that Abad's work feels timely, raising questions about restitution.{{Cite web |last=Marshall |first=Alex |title=Turner Prize Shortlist |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/arts/design/turner-prize-shortlist.html}} The show told stories of "plunder and exchange" said Thorne, highlighting "entangled histories" around colonialism. "We were struck with how it chimed with inscription and incision", Thorne added.{{Cite web |date=2024-04-24 |title=Turner Prize hits 40 with a shortlist that includes Claudette Johnson and Pio Abad |url=https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2024/04/24/turner-prize-hits-40-with-a-shortlist-that-includes-claudette-johnson-and-pio-abad |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=The Art Newspaper - International art news and events}}
Pacita Abad
Abad is also the curator of the estate of his aunt, the Filipino American artist Pacita Abad.{{Cite web |date=2023-09-17 |title=Pio Abad On Pacita Abad, The Woman Who Lived In Color |url=https://vogue.ph/lifestyle/art/pacita-abad-decades-strong-path-of-color-set-ablaze/ |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=vogue.ph |language=en-US}}{{Cite news |last=Searle |first=Adrian |date=2024-04-24 |title=This Turner prize shortlist is one in the eye for petty nationalists |url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/apr/24/turner-prize-shortlist |access-date=2024-09-17 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}