Pio Abad

Bio   |   
Selected Works   |   
Public Art   |   
Available Artworks for Pio Abad

Bio

Pio Abad (b. 1983, Manila, Philippines; lives and works in London, England) examines the personal and political entanglements of and within objects. Through a wide- ranging practice encompassing drawing, painting, textiles, installation, and text, Abad mines repressed historical events and offers counternarratives to draw out threads of complicity between incidents, ideologies, and people. Deeply informed by unfolding events in the Philippines, his work emanates from a personal family chronicle woven into the nation’s story.

Abad’s 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 In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire, 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennial, Kerala (2022); Is it morning for you yet?, The 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2022); 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). Forthcoming exhibitions include: Small World, 13th Taipei Biennial (2023) and Pio Abad: To Those Sitting in Darkness at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in February 2024. His artworks are held in collections around the world including Tate, UK; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Hawai’i State Art Museum, Honolulu; Singapore Art Museum; Kadist, Paris/San Francisco and Art Jameel, Dubai.

He is also the curator of the estate of his aunt, the Filipino American artist Pacita Abad. He has recently co-curated monographic exhibitions on Pacita Abad at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design Manila and Spike Island, Bristol. He also co-edited the publication Pacita Abad: A Million Things to Say in 2021.

Pio Abad (b. 1983, Manila, Philippines; lives and works in London, England) examines the personal and political entanglements of and within objects. Through a wide- ranging practice encompassing drawing, painting, textiles, installation, and text, Abad mines repressed historical events and offers counternarratives to draw out threads of complicity between incidents, ideologies, and people. Deeply informed by unfolding events in the Philippines, his work emanates from a personal family chronicle woven into the nation’s story.

Abad’s 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 In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire, 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennial, Kerala (2022); Is it morning for you yet?, The 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2022); 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). Forthcoming exhibitions include: Small World, 13th Taipei Biennial (2023) and Pio Abad: To Those Sitting in Darkness at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in February 2024. His artworks are held in collections around the world including Tate, UK; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Hawai’i State Art Museum, Honolulu; Singapore Art Museum; Kadist, Paris/San Francisco and Art Jameel, Dubai.

He is also the curator of the estate of his aunt, the Filipino American artist Pacita Abad. He has recently co-curated monographic exhibitions on Pacita Abad at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design Manila and Spike Island, Bristol. He also co-edited the publication Pacita Abad: A Million Things to Say in 2021.

Selected Works

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Selected Works

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Notes on Decomposition (Lot 157)
2021
7094
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ink and gouache on paper
23.39h x 16.54w in • 59.40h x 42w cm (each)
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0
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Notes on Decomposition (Lot 394)
2021
7092
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Ink and gouache on heritage woodfree paper
23.39h x 16.54w in • 59.4h x 42w cm (diptych) (each) (unframed) 24.21h x 17.44w in • 61.5h x 44.30w cm (diptych) (each) (framed)
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Notes on Decomposition No. 14
2019
7093
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ink on Heritage Woodfree Paper
31.50h x 15.75w in • 80h x 40w cm
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Oh! Oh! Oh! (A Universal History of Iniquity)
2019
858
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installation
variable dimensions
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Every Tool is a Weapon if You Hold it Right I
2013
861
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acid dye print on silk twill
39.37 X 39.37 on • 100 x 100 cm
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Malakas at Maganda
2014
864
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Some Are Smarter Than Others
Gasworks
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Thirty-eight pieces of royal silverware…
2014
865
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Some Are Smarter Than Others
Gasworks
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A Short History of Decay VI
2015
866
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ink on paper
54.02h x 40w in • 137.20h x 101.60w cm
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Not a Shield, but a Weapon
2016
868
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180 black purses
291.34h x 263.78w x 9.84d in • 740h x 670w x 25d cm
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Notes on Decomposition I
2016
869
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ink on heritage woodfree paper
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Every Tool is a Weapon if You Hold it Right XL
2017
870
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unique acid dye print on hand-stitched silk twill
39.37h x 39.37w in • 100h x 100w cm
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Decoy I
2014
871
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CCTV camera, shells
variable dimensions
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COUNTERNARRATIVES IX
2017
872
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unique acid dye print on hand-stitched silk twill
39.37h x 78.74w in • 100h x 200w cm
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Every Tool Is A Weapon If You Hold It Right XLI
2018
873
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unique acid dye print on hand-stitched silk twill
100h x 100w cm • 39.37h x 39.37w in
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Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite
2019
874
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installation
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Kadist
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Selected Exhibitions

LONDON
25 September 2024 - 16 February 2025
2024 Turner Prize Exhibition
Tate Britain, London
One of four artists shortlisted for the prestigious 2024 Turner Prize, Pio Abad’s (b. 1983, Manila, Philippines; lives and works in London, England) art explores cultural loss and colonial histories, often reflecting on his upbringing in the Philippines. Featuring drawings, etchings and sculptures that depict and transform artifacts from Oxford museums, Abad highlights their overlooked histories and connections to everyday household items. He was nominated for his solo exhibition 'To Those Sitting in Darkness' at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
SINGAPORE
19 January - 28 January 2024
S.E.A. Focus 2024
Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore
Silverlens is delighted to return to S.E.A. Focus from 19 to 28 January 2024, featuring works by eight contemporary artists from the Philippines, its diaspora, and the Asia-Pacific region: Pio Abad, Poklong Anading, Nicole Coson, Taloi Havini, Bernardo Pacquing, Stephanie Syjuco, Ryan Villamael, and Yee I-Lann. S.E.A. Focus is the first in a series of global presentations by the gallery on its 20th anniversary.
SINGAPORE
05 January - 15 January 2023
S.E.A. Focus 2023
Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore
Silverlens returns to SEA Focus with a two-part presentation and a special exhibition featuring the late Filipina American artist Pacita Abad. For the first half of the showcase on January 5–9, Silverlens will be presenting drawings by Pio Abad from his Notes on Decomposition series, and a painting by Patricia Perez Eustaquio. Self-portraits by Wawi Navarroza and a new tikar (mat) from Yee I-Lann’s Tukad Kad Sequence will conclude the presentation on January 10–15.
MANILA
07 April - 07 May 2022
Crime and Ornament
Silverlens is proud to present the two-artist exhibition, Crime and Ornament, featuring Pio Abad and Stephanie Syjuco. Re-engaging and re-energizing previous works to confront the urgency of the moment (the dictator’s son being installed to the highest position of the land within the realm of possibility), the artists materialize the ontology of protest, recalibrating how text, image, and even the seeming impersonality of the chroma key may be activated to prompt oppositional relationships, revolutionary impulses, counter- narratives.
BASEL
24 September - 26 September 2021
Art Basel Features 2021
SILVERLENS is pleased to be participating in the Basel show of Art Basel for the third time. Previous participations were in Statements with Maria Taniguchi (2013) and Martha Atienza (2017). In 2021, Silverlens is presenting Pacita Abad in the Features section, with exceptional art historical material produced in the last years of the artist’s life.
HONG KONG
19 May - 23 May 2021
Art Basel Hong Kong 2021
SILVERLENS is pleased to be participating in Art Basel Hong Kong in three ways: on-site in Hong Kong, with a joint booth with Rossi & Rossi; the fair’s Online Viewing Room; and our own website, where all the pieces are available for viewing. The works represent diversity in practice and a playfulness with materials that the gallery has been championing since it was founded in 2004.
DUBAI
29 March - 03 April 2021
Art Dubai 2021
SILVERLENS is pleased to participate in the fourteenth edition of Art Dubai. For this occasion, the gallery is presenting a small but diverse collection of works by three of its represented artists: James Clar, Pio Abad, and Nicole Coson.
MANILA
18 February - 04 March 2021
It Seems We Have Developed A Taste For Each Other’s Weaknesses
Online Viewing Room
Pio Abad embarked on It Seems We Have Developed A Taste For Each Other’s Weaknesses while confined to his London home during the UK’s national Covid-19 lockdown and amid conditions of rising causalities and economic uncertainty.
MANILA
12 October 2020
Remember This House
Remember this House, is the first permanent public artwork by leading British-Filipino artist Pio Abad. It takes the form of two murals on Kilburn High Road and Burton Road that are inspired by vanitas still life paintings.
26 March - 31 May 2020
Art Dubai
SILVERLENS continues to bring Filipino art into dialogue with the global art landscape by taking part in Art Dubai’s Online Catalogue. The gallery presents important works by contemporary artists Pio Abad, James Clar, and Nicole Coson that challenge history, perception, and technique.
MANILA
28 March - 29 April 2017
COUNTERNARRATIVES
Silverlens, Manila
Pio Abad continues his engagement with Philippine political history, specifically looking at the problematic cultural legacy of the Marcos dictatorship in light of recent attempts to rehabilitate this dark chapter in the nation’s history. In a new body of work, he reconfigures familiar narratives and excavates dismantled iconographies in an attempt to understand the seemingly breath taking pace at which this history has unravelled.
SINGAPORE
06 March - 12 April 2015
A Short History of Decay
Silverlens, Singapore
'A Short History of Decay' is Pio Abad's first solo exhibition in Singapore. The exhibition is comprised of new drawings and sculptures that further explores the artist’s ongoing interest in inventories and the social and political implications of objects.
LONDON
12 September - 16 November 2014
Some Are Smarter Than Others
Gasworks, London
Pio Abad employs strategies of appropriation to reveal the social and political implications of objects usually consigned to the sidelines of history. This exhibition comprises newly commissioned sculpture, photographs and printed textiles that reference fine and decorative art objects owned or commissioned by the Marcoses during their rule.
MANILA
28 August - 30 September 2014
The Collection of Jane Ryan and William Saunders
Jorge B. Vargas Museum, Quezon City
Jorge B. Vargas Museum, in cooperation with Silverlens Galleries, presents 'The Collection of Jane Ryan and William Saunders', a major solo exhibition by artist Pio Abad.
MANILA
23 October - 23 November 2013
Every Tool Is A Weapon If You Hold It Right
Silverlens, Manila
'Every Tool Is A Weapon If You Hold It Right' is Pio Abad’s first solo presentation in Manila. Using the silk scarf as a template, Abad produces a fabric that turns into a luxurious page, the site of a contemporary vanitas.

Public Art

12 Oct 2020
Remember This House
Remember this House, is the first permanent public artwork by leading British-Filipino artist Pio Abad. It takes the form of two murals on Kilburn High Road and Burton Road that are inspired by vanitas still life paintings.
Kilburn High Road and Burton Road, London

Selected Press

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