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Pacita Abad: Walker Art Center

Past exhibition
15 April 2023
  • Overview
  • Installation Views
  • Press release
  • News
Overview
Pacita Abad, Walker Art Center

We are pleased to announce Pacita Abad, the first retrospective of the artist, opening at the Walker Art Center on April 15th. Featuring significant and rarely-seen works from across Abad’s 32-year career, this exhibition will serve as the most comprehensive exploration of Abad’s works to-date, including more than 100 objects drawn from private and public collections across Asia, Europe, and the US. Pacita Abad is organized by the Walker Art Center, and curated by Victoria Sung, Associate Curator of Visual Arts, with support from Matthew Villar Miranda, Curatorial Fellow in Visual Arts. The exhibition is developed in collaboration with the Pacita Abad Art Estate, managed by Jack Garrity, Kristi Garrity, and Pio Abad. It will travel to SFMoMA in October, 2023.

 

The presentation positions Abad within art historical narratives, providing new insights into her conceptual and aesthetic evolutions as well as the life experiences that so richly influenced her practice.

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Installation Views
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Installation view of Pacita Abad at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 15 - Sep 3, 2023). Image courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Installation view of Pacita Abad at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 15 - Sep 3, 2023). Image courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Installation view of Pacita Abad at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 15 - Sep 3, 2023). Image courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Installation view of Pacita Abad at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 15 - Sep 3, 2023). Image courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Installation view of Pacita Abad at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 15 - Sep 3, 2023). Image courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Installation view of Pacita Abad at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 15 - Sep 3, 2023). Image courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Installation view of Pacita Abad at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 15 - Sep 3, 2023). Image courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Installation view of Pacita Abad at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 15 - Sep 3, 2023). Image courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Installation view of Pacita Abad at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 15 - Sep 3, 2023). Image courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Installation view of Pacita Abad at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 15 - Sep 3, 2023). Image courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Installation view of Pacita Abad at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 15 - Sep 3, 2023). Image courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Installation view of Pacita Abad at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 15 - Sep 3, 2023). Image courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Installation view of Pacita Abad at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 15 - Sep 3, 2023). Image courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.
Installation view of Pacita Abad at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (April 15 - Sep 3, 2023). Image courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery. Photo by Hyunjung Rhee.
Press release

The exuberant and wide-ranging works of Pacita Abad (US, b. Philippines, 1946–2004) are the subject of the first-ever retrospective spanning the artist’s 32-year career. Abad is best known for her trapuntos, a form of quilted painting made by stitching and stuffing her canvases as opposed to stretching them over a wood frame. During her lifetime, the prolific artist made a vast number of artworks that traverse a diversity of subjects, from colorful masks to intricately constructed underwater scenes to abstract compositions. The exhibition includes more than 100 works—most of which have never been on public view in the United States—showcasing her experiments in different mediums, including textiles, works on paper, costumes, and ceramics. Organized by the Walker in collaboration with Abad’s estate, the presentation celebrates the multifaceted work of an artist whose vibrant visual, material, and conceptual concerns are as urgent today as they were three decades ago.

 

Abad moved to the United States in 1970 to escape political persecution after leading a student demonstration against the authoritarian Marcos regime. Informed by this experience, she was determined to give visibility to political refugees and oppressed peoples through her art: “I have always believed that an artist has a special obligation to remind society of its social responsibility.” Works from her Immigrant Experience series (1983–1995) highlight the rising multiculturalism of the 1990s. These works call attention to the era’s contradictions and omissions, centering the sufferings and triumphs of people on the periphery of power. The multiplicity of stories referenced in the series include such events as the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the Haitian refugee crisis, and the detention of Mexican migrant workers at the US border, offering an intimate look at lives often obscured by the reductive, xenophobic headlines of the time.

 

Though she became a US citizen in 1994, Abad lived for several years in a number of countries around the world, including Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Kenya, the Philippines, Singapore, and Sudan. Largely self-taught, she interacted with the various artistic communities she encountered on her travels, incorporating a diversity of cultural traditions and techniques—from Korean ink brush painting to Indonesian batik—into her expansive practice. Abad’s global, peripatetic existence is reflected in the portability of her works and in her use of textiles, a medium often associated with female, non-Western labor and historically marginalized as craft.

 

The exhibition is accompanied by the first major publication on Abad’s work, produced by the Walker. In addition to the most comprehensive documentation of the artist’s work to date, the volume includes texts by Victoria Sung, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Nancy Lim, Ruba Katrib, Xiaoyu Weng, and Matthew Villar Miranda as well as oral histories conducted with artists, curators, family members, and others who knew Abad, edited by Pio Abad and Victoria Sung.

News
  • The Decades-Strong Path of Color Set Ablaze By Pacita Abad

    The Decades-Strong Path of Color Set Ablaze By Pacita Abad

    Vogue September 17, 2023
    Pio Abad reflects on the exuberant work of his aunt, the Batanes-born, world-traveling artist Pacita Abad, whose immense retrospective blazes its way across North America....
    Learn More
  • Pacita Abad

    Pacita Abad

    ArtAsiaPacific September 1, 2023
    The first international retrospective of the late Pacita Abad (1946–2004), curated by Victoria Sung with Matthew Villar Miranda, was as celebratory as it was studious....
    Learn More
  • The 100 Greatest New York City Artworks, Ranked

    The 100 Greatest New York City Artworks, Ranked

    Artnews August 29, 2023
    Pacita Abad, L.A. Liberty , 1992 Of the many representations of the Statue of Liberty throughout art history, few look quite like Pacita Abad’s L.A....
    Learn More
  • A 350-Page Tribute to Pacita Abad’s Boundless Art

    A 350-Page Tribute to Pacita Abad’s Boundless Art

    Hyperallergic August 2, 2023
    What is most remarkable about the life and work of Filipina artist Pacita Abad? The expansive catalogue that accompanies the artist’s career-spanning survey exhibition at...
    Learn More
  • Pacita Abad’s Stitching Traverses the Globe

    Pacita Abad’s Stitching Traverses the Globe

    FRIEZE July 7, 2023
    I had to resist the urge, walking through Pacita Abad’s retrospective at Walker Art Center, to wrap myself in one of the artist’s colourful, hand-embroidered,...
    Learn More
  • Taking Liberty

    Taking Liberty

    Artforum June 1, 2023
    The Statue of Liberty is the apex of national mythmaking, a bloated bronze symbol standing watch over New York Harbor, where it broadcasts a promise...
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  • 25 Pathbreaking Asian American Artists Whose Names You Need to Know

    25 Pathbreaking Asian American Artists Whose Names You Need to Know

    ARTnews May 27, 2023
    As Asian American and Pacific Islander History Month winds down, it’s important to note how many AAPI artists, architects, collectors, and activists have changed the...
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  • Layered and Embellished Trapunto Paintings Exude Spirit in Pacita Abad’s First Retrospective

    Layered and Embellished Trapunto Paintings Exude Spirit in Pacita Abad’s First Retrospective

    Colossal May 10, 2023
    Having created more than 5,000 paintings in her lifetime, traveled the world, and shown in over 200 exhibitions, Pacita Abad (1946-2004) was one of the...
    Learn More
  • Coloring in the Margins: Pacita Abad

    Coloring in the Margins: Pacita Abad

    The New York Times April 25, 2023
    On a wintry March day in Minneapolis, a small group gathered underground to look at monumental and hyper-colored works of art. In the sprawling storage...
    Learn More
  • ‘Pacita Abad’ at the Walker Celebrates a Life Lived Globally

    ‘Pacita Abad’ at the Walker Celebrates a Life Lived Globally

    Racket April 14, 2023
    Pacita Abad hated white walls. So, for her retrospective exhibition at the Walker Art Center, the galleries have been painted: pale pink, golden yellow, deep...
    Learn More
  • First-of-its-kind retrospective of Filipino artist Pacita Abad opens at the Walker

    First-of-its-kind retrospective of Filipino artist Pacita Abad opens at the Walker

    CBS News April 14, 2023
    MINNEAPOLIS -- Visitors to the Walker Art Center will soon experience a never-before seen exhibit highlighting the colorful work of a world-renowned artist. It's a...
    Learn More
  • Pacita Abad’s Art of Excess

    Pacita Abad’s Art of Excess

    The Wall Street Journal April 7, 2023
    A peripatetic life and a more-is-more sensibility were the key ingredients in the career of textile artist Pacita Abad, whose monumental artworks broke down barriers...
    Learn More
  • Long Pushed to the Margins, Pacita Abad’s Art About the Immigrant Experience Gets Global Recognition

    Long Pushed to the Margins, Pacita Abad’s Art About the Immigrant Experience Gets Global Recognition

    ArtNews April 15, 2021
    The story of the thousands of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island in New York during the late 19th and early 20th centuries is well-known...
    Learn More
  • LOOK CLOSER: Understanding Pacita Abad's European Mask

    LOOK CLOSER: Understanding Pacita Abad's European Mask

    Tate April 1, 2021
    'I have been very fortunate to spend most of my artistic career painting in the far-flung corners of the globe and my journeys have been...
    Learn More

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