Asia

Pio Abad

Malakas & Maganda (1986 – 2016)

2017

Pio Abad, Malakas & Maganda (1986 – 2016), 2017. Installation.

The installation Malakas & Maganda (1986 – 2016) comprises two sculptures, one photograph and one video and was presented for the first time as an ensemble at KADIST Paris for the exhibition Conceal, cover with sand, replicate, translate, restore. The installation questions the mythological iconography of the Filipino conjugal dictators Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and thus addresses the construction of propaganda representation and the role of art facing current events. The work is organized around the leftovers of a copy of a monumental sculpture of Imelda Marcos, which the artist had commissioned and whose remains were stored in his studio.

Several included elements show how this body of work has evolved over time and in reaction to political events in the Philippines. The video footage was taken inside the KADIST exhibition Soil and Stones, Souls and Songs in Manila, when the artist requested that his own piece (i.e. copied paintings representing the dictator) be repainted in black to protest against the revisionist funeral organized by current president Duterte.

In his artistic practice, Pio Abad considers the social and political significance of objects usually consigned to the sidelines of history. Abad uses different media such as textile, drawing, installation, and photography; employing strategies of appropriation to extract alternative readings and repressed historical events. Abad’s work weaves together threads of complicity between events, ideologies, and people. His work glides seamlessly between these histories, enacting quasi-fictional combinations with their leftovers. By juxtaposing disparate items within a cohesive visual framework, Abad encourages viewers to question the relationships between personal and collective histories, the mundane and the monumental, and the visible and the hidden.

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Pio Abad Malakas & Maganda (1986 – 2016)

Pio Abad

Malakas & Maganda (1986 – 2016)