Pio Abad

Oh! Oh! Oh! (A Universal History of Infamy [1]) a solo show by Pio Abad. Looking back over a year’s projects and an accumulated body research[2], Abad presents a small collection of objects [3] that together underpin a substantial part of the artist's practice during 2012.

 

[1] In his preface to the 1954 edition of ‘A Universal History of Infamy’, Jorge Luis Borges described the book as an example of the baroque, "when art flaunts and squanders its resources". He wrote that the stories are "the irresponsible sport of a shy sort of man who could not bring himself to write short stories, and so amused himself by changing and distorting the stories of other men”, and that "under all the storm and lightning, there is nothing.”

[2]Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos fled Malacañan Palace on the 25th of February 1986 as a result of a military backed popular revolt. Over a million people took to the streets of Manila to demand an end to their twenty-year conjugal rule marred by allegations of plunder and human rights violations. On board a US Army helicopter provided by their friends Ronald and Nancy Reagan, the Marcoses and their supporters flew to what was thought to be a permanent Honolulu exile. In the wake of the Marcos family’s departure, people were able to enter the fifty-four-room palace that had been off limits and heavily fortified for decades. In the family dining room, they found a half-eaten banana and an unfinished piece of steak still in its silver service. Documents were strewn throughout, jammed in paper shredders and found clogged in a gold plated toilet bowl. One bedroom contained an oxygen tank, a dialysis machine and packages of Adamson’s adult disposable diapers – proof of the president’s long denied illness. In Imelda’s dressing room, they discovered racks of bejeweled gowns, bullet proof brassieres, gallon size bottles of French perfume and one thousand and sixty pairs of size 8 ½ shoes, the most notable of which was a pair of plastic disco sandals with 3-inch high, flashing, battery operated heels.  

[3] The traditional mascot of the Republican Party is the elephant. A political cartoon by Thomas Nast, published in Harper's Weekly on 7th November 1874, is considered the first important use of the symbol. Thereafter, Nast continued using the Republican Elephant symbol, and after 1879 stopped associating any other animal with the Republican Party except for one cartoon in 1886 in which Republicans were depicted as vultures. By the 1880 presidential election, cartoonists for other publications had incorporated the elephant symbol into their own work, and by March 1884 Nast could refer to the image he had created for the Republican Party as “The Sacred Elephant.” 

Artist's Website

Pio Abad

Pio Abad

Pio Abad

Pio Abad

Pio Abad

From top

Oh, Oh, Oh! (A Universal History of Infamy), installation view

A Christmas tree made out of seashells from Imelda Marcos, given to and promptly rejected by my father in December 2010

A ceramic plate depicting Imelda Marcos as the reincarnation of Semiramis, mistakenly represented as Nefertiti

A framed pair of honeydew red lace Republican elephant American election cheeky panties

Emblem perfume and plastic gold replica of the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai, bought from Whitechapel market

 

Photography, Mariona Otera

 

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