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.
[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.
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