Ashmolean NOW: Pio Abad

This beautifully designed book accompanies the Ashmolean Museum's second exhibition of its new Ashmolean NOW series, featuring the work of Pio Abad. The book features a new text by Abad and contributions by art historical experts including Dan Hicks. Pio Abad exhibition (and catalogue) has been shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize: "Nominated for his solo exhibition To Those Sitting in Darkness at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Abad’s work considers cultural loss and colonial histories, often reflecting on his upbringing in the Philippines. His exhibition includes drawing, etchings and sculptures which depict, juxtapose and transform artefacts from Oxford museums, highlighting their overlooked histories and drawing parallels with familiar household items. The jury commended the precision and elegance with which Abad combines research with new artistic work to ask questions of museums. They also remarked on both the sensitivity and clarity with which he brings history into the present." - Tate

Pio Abad’s artistic practice is concerned with the personal and political entanglements of objects. His wide-ranging body of work, encompassing drawing, painting, textiles, installation and text, mines alternative or repressed historical events and offers counternarratives that draw out threads of complicity between incidents, ideologies and people. Deeply informed by unfolding events in the Philippines, where the artist was born and raised, his work emanates from a family narrative woven into the nation’s story. Abad’s parents were at the forefront of the anti-dictatorship struggle in the Philippines during the 1970s and 80s and it is the need to remember this history that has shaped the foundations of his work. 

This beautifully designed book accompanies the Ashmolean Museum''s second exhibition of its new Ashmolean NOW series, featuring the work of Pio Abad. Abad’s artistic practice is concerned with the personal and political entanglements of objects. His wide-ranging body of work, which includes drawing, painting, installation, textiles and text, mines alternative or repressed historical events, offering counternarratives. Abad''s new works link narratives found in the Museum''s collections and Oxford with his personal life in the UK and Philippines, where the artist was born and raised. The book features a new text by Abad and contributions by art historical experts including Dan Hicks.

• | Author: Dan Hicks, Vera Mey, Pio Abad, Lena Fritsch
• | Publisher: Ashmolean Museum
• | Publication Date: Feb 08, 2024
• | Number of Pages:
• | Language:
• | Binding: Paperback / softback
• | ISBN-13: 9781910807606
• | ISBN-10: 1910807605