Pacita Abad created the series Change is in the Air while living in Indonesia in 1995, twenty-five years after fleeing the Philippines and the oppression of Ferdinand Marcos’s dictatorial regime. Made during the twilight of Suharto’s similarly violent authoritarian rule, the works serve as both historical record and cultural display, one in which Abad made use of local materials and textiles, including Indonesian batik fabric.
Change is in the Air demonstrates many of the artist’s signature techniques: layered textures, intricate stitching, and painted cloth. And though stretched and framed, the works in the series can be experienced from the front and the back like the artist’s large quilted paintings that are hung from the ceiling. Many of these paintings are exhibited in Abad’s first major retrospective in North America, which began at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and travels to MoMA PS1 in New York City this spring, but Change is in the Air has never been previously published or exhibited. These versos map the journeys of Abad’s stitched lines, and from this side, the bones of each work become visible as if exposing a hidden history.
For Change is in the Air, Abad eschews figuration in favor of abstraction and exchanges bright hues for muddied browns. Deeply familiar with political repression, she turned to abstraction to navigate the rampant censorship of Suharto’s regime but still articulate dissent. Amid the works’ gloomy, muted color palette, flashes of blue, orange, and pink emerge like morning light on the horizon after a long, stormy night. Change is in the Air signals realms of possibility beyond the disquiet. The series echoes the political and ethical concerns found throughout the artist’s oeuvre, making clear her steadfast beliefs in the need to fight against oppression across countries and cultures and that revolution can be both quiet and powerful.
—Carina Santos
