Pio Abad
For Anti-Imperialist Peace, Solidarity and Friendship, 2022
하네뮬레 바리타 용지에 지클레이 프린트
12 × 17cm 프린트 15점
Giclée print on Hahnemühle Baryta paper
15 prints of 12 × 17cm
A series of color photographs documenting the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students in Pyongyang in 1989 comprise Pio Abad’s For Anti-Imperialist Peace, Solidarity and Friendship. The photographs were taken by the artist’s father, who was part of the Philippine delegation to the festival. The amateur, more intimate scale of the images presented in Abad’s work contrasts with the immense mass spectacle of the festival. For Abad, the images are “part of a larger historical tapestry occurring that crucial year, when conflicting positions of collectivity and individualism led to dramatic geopolitical alignments and to erroneous claims of histories ending.” This kind of historical imagination moves away from Francis Fukuyama’s sweeping claims of global history “ending” due to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The familial archive of the artist’s father motivates a differential scale of historical narrative that aims to “trouble the simplifications of national narratives with more granular, more sensitive accounts of how different kinds of historical narration unravel the different stakes and effects that shape our relationships with history and historical imagination.”
Pio Abad is a Filipino artist living and working in London. His work is concerned with the social and political signification of things. Deeply informed by the modern history of the Philippines, where the artist was born and raised, his work uses strategies of appropriation to mine alternative or repressed historical events, unravel official accounts and draw out threads of complicity between incidents, ideologies and people. He began his art studies at the University of the Philippines (2002–2004) before receiving a BA from Glasgow School of Art in 2007 and an MA from the Royal Academy Schools, London, in 2012. He has had solo exhibitions at Kadist, San Francisco; Oakville Galleries, Ontario; Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow; 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney; Gasworks, London and Jorge B. Vargas Museum, Manila. In 2022, he will have a solo exhibition at the Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila entitled Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts, a survey of Abad’s 10-year project examining the legacy of the Marcos dictatorship.
He has recently participated group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Jameel Art Centre, Dubai; the 2nd Honolulu Biennial, Hawaii; the 12th Gwangju Biennial, Gwangju; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow; Kadist, Paris; Para Site, Hong Kong. He will also be part of the 5th Kochi Muziris Biennial in 2022. Abad’s works are part of a number of collections including Tate, UK; Kadist, Paris/San Francisco and Art Jameel, Dubai. He has also curated exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila; Spike Island, Bristol and Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai.
He has recently participated group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Jameel Art Centre, Dubai; the 2nd Honolulu Biennial, Hawaii; the 12th Gwangju Biennial, Gwangju; Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow; Kadist, Paris; Para Site, Hong Kong. He will also be part of the 5th Kochi Muziris Biennial in 2022. Abad’s works are part of a number of collections including Tate, UK; Kadist, Paris/San Francisco and Art Jameel, Dubai. He has also curated exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila; Spike Island, Bristol and Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai.
Pio Abad, For Anti-Imperialist Peace, Solidarity and Friendship, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.