5 Standouts From the 2024 Venice Biennale

Having been beguiled by Pacita Abad’s just-opened exhibition at MoMA PS1, I was delighted to spy a cluster of her works toward the beginning of the Arsenale Corderie. The three large-scale quilted paintings from 1994 and 1995—part of her Immigrant Experience series drawn from her travels, research, and own immigrant experience from the Philippines—are rendered in her signature trapunto style, which she helped to pioneer by stitching and stuffing painted canvases instead of stretching them over a frame. Filipinas in Hong Kong (1995), in which groups of Filipina migrant workers are dwarfed by skyscrapers and luxury stores, expresses Abad’s frustration at, then as now, the lack of political representation and government support for the large community of Filipina domestic workers who often face widespread discrimination and challenging working and living conditions.

April 22, 2024