
Pio Abad
Bio

Pio Abad (b. 1983, Manila, lives and works in London) began his art studies at the University of the Philippines before receiving a BA from Glasgow School of Art and an MA from the Royal Academy Schools, London. He has recently exhibited at Honolulu Biennial, Hawaii (2019); Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2018); Art Basel Encounters, Hong Kong (2017); Para Site, Hong Kong (2017); Kadist, Paris (2017); Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow (2016); 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney (2016); EVA International Biennial, Limerick (2016); e-flux, New York City (2015); Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art and Design Manila (2015); Gasworks, London (2014) and Jorge B. Vargas Museum, Manila (2014).
Pio Abad’s practice is concerned with the social and political signification of things. His work, in a range of media including textiles, drawing, installation and photography, 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. Often taking on the form of domestic accessories, Abad’s artworks glide seamlessly between these histories, enacting quasi-fictional combinations with their leftovers.
Selected Works
Selected Works







Gasworks







Selected Exhibitions
Public Art
Selected Press
- Philippines election: artist explores Marcos family’s ill-gotten art and jewels as son Ferdinand Jr leads presidential polls
- Pio Abad’s latest exhibit reveals the ugliness behind the ‘beauty’ of martial law
- ‘One diamond could have bought two airports’ – the Filipino recreating Imelda Marcos’s gems stash
- A new Tate Gallery installation tells a story of martial law corruption through jewelry
- ArtReview Asia - Acts of Indignation
- LOOK: Filipino artist Pio Abad's first permanent public artwork in London
- Blood splatters, soul soda and a giant George Michael: inside Brent's biennial
- Pio Abad – interview: ‘The backbone of my practice is family: personal and political narratives entwined’
- 10 Minutes with Pio Abad
- Pio Abad Interview: Pacita Abad, Life in the Margins exhibition at Spike Island
- Conversation with Pio Abad
- Best of 2019: Our Top 20 United States Art Shows
- Mediating the Consequences of a Former Filipino Dictator
- Pio Abad’s “Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite”
- Pio Abad “Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite” at Kadist, San Francisco
- Artist Pio Abad’s memorials against historical revisionism
- Splendour, Pio Abad
- 8 Highlights From the Honolulu Biennial, From Imelda Marcos’s Jewelry Collection to 100 Portraits of Native Hawaiian Leaders
- Artist recreates exiled dictator's treasure trove in 3D—but what happened to the originals?
- Para Site International Conference Diary: Day 3
- Highlights from Gwangju Biennale 2018: "Imagined Borders," Part 1
- A History of Forgetting in One Object
- An ‘urgent’ show: Why Pio Abad is repeating images of history
- How anti-Marcos protests influenced an artist’s latest exhibit
- Mao, Lenin, Thatcher, and Other Leaders Haunt Art Basel Hong Kong
- Navigating the Fair: Highlights of Art Basel Hong Kong
- Pio Abad To Be Exhibited In Australia For The First Time
- Corruption: Three Bodies, and Ungovernable Subjects
- Interview with artist Pio Abad