Pio Abad

Philippines · Visual Arts

Pio Abad is an artist living and working in London. His work is concerned with the personal and political entanglements of objects. Deeply informed by the modern history of the Philippines, where the artist was born and raised, his work reflects on the role of family both as archive and agent, and 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.

His solo exhibitions include Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts, Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila (2022); Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite, Kadist, San Francisco (2019); Splendour, Oakville Galleries, Ontario (2019); Notes on Decomposition, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow (2016); 1975 – 2015, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney and Some Are Smarter Than Others, Gasworks, London (2014). Recent group exhibition include Things Entangling, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2020); Phantom Limb, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2019); To Make Wrong/Right/Now, 2nd Honolulu Biennial, Hawaii (2019); Imagined Nations/ Modern Utopias, 12th Gwangju Biennial, Korea (2018).

In 2022, he will be part of Is it morning for you yet?, The 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2022) and In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire, 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennial, Kerala (2022).

Abad’s works are part of a number of important collections including Tate, UK; Hawai’i State Art Museum, Kadist in Paris & San Francisco and Art Jameel, Dubai. He is also the curator of the estate of his aunt, the Filipino American artist Pacita Abad.

Pio Abad - Afield Advisor

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