Pacita Abad

Filipina-American, 1946-2004.

On the Pacita Abad Retrospective, MoMA PS1, New York City April 4 - September 2, 2024

Visiting Pacita: A Friend to the World

Introduction by Maria Guerrero, founder of Women in the Arts, Inc.

A Life in Color, Warmth of Home

by Zeny Recidoro-Fesh, writer and artist

Introduction

Visiting Pacita: A Friend to the World

The taxi ride is taking forever. I have a small window of opportunity to make it to Queens to see Pacita Abad’s retrospective exhibition at MoMA PS1.

Since I was first introduced to the work of the late Filipina-American artist Pacita Abad seven years ago, I’ve been waiting to see her work in person. I could not stop reading about her story. I connected immediately with her activism and loved her art. Through the photographs of her, Pacita’s smile invited me into her world of painting, advocacy, and passion for everyone around her. Learning about Pacita, felt like I was making a new friend.

At last, Pacita’s work is taking the front row. The world is finally paying attention and giving her a belated tribute and I am excited! Her first retrospective exhibition premiered at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis last year and from there, Pacita's legacy started to flow rapidly with vibrant color into a thirsty art world on a global scale.

The sky is pouting, like it's about to rain as I enter the welcoming old neighborhood school repurposed as a museum. The familiarity and charm of the space escort me into the exhibition. I think, "I made it Pacita! I'm here!"

Color, texture, and her artistic voice worked into each form and surface testify to faithfulness, perseverance, love, joy, and victory through struggle, pain, and even death. I needed to be close to Pacita's work and see the small brushstrokes, the stitches, and all the details. The tiny round mirrors in her pieces surprised me playfully, projecting my reflection. It was a dialogue and it made me smile.

It is going to take me a long while to absorb all I've witnessed through her work. It was difficult to leave.

Later, I went down to the courtyard. It had almost stopped raining and now the sun was starting to shine as I walked over the wet gravel, which made a comforting sound. I stopped and saw light drops of spring rain falling through the sunlight before me. Like Pacita's mirrors. A shower of mirrors.

I celebrate Pacita’s exhibition and present success. Through her work, Pacita Abad is a friend, and more importantly, a friend of the world.

MARIA GUERRERO

Queens, New York City April 2024

A Life in Color, Warmth of Home

When I first heard that Pacita Abad was having a retrospective at MoMA PS1, I was thrilled. Filipino artists have always had a presence in the art world outside of Manila. But something about Abad’s retrospective resonated as important, necessary, and monumental.

Pacita Barsana Abad (b. October 5, 1946 in Basco, Batanes; d. December 7, 2004, Singapore) adopted Indigenous aesthetics and materials in her artworks to foster solidarity among native cultures around the world. Her artworks are also considered literal and metaphorical treatises on the living conditions of migrant Filipinos and other diasporic peoples. In the current exhibit at MoMA PS1, the Oceanic, African, Southeast, and South Asian influences are obvious. Her artworks are described as trapuntos, from the Italian term for quilt, a technique she learned from artist and feminist Barbara Newman.

The process of creating a trapunto begins with painting and collaging on an unstretched canvas. For Abad, color was a major aspect of her work. She used deep, bright, and vibrant hues reminiscent of the tropics. Looking at her pieces reminds me of Philippine beaches. The wonderful cacophony of sights, sounds, and smells of the streets of Manila and countryside fiestas. Another feature is beadwork to create tactility and texture. After creating the picture plane, Abad attaches a backing, puts stuffing, and sews the two layers together. The result is a soft and, what appears to be, three-dimensional work. Imposing and inviting at the same time, Abad’s artworks straddle the boundary between authority and comfort. No doubt—even in her most abstract and seemingly neutral pieces—her art practice is informed by the political climate that she witnessed and lived through.

One such work is Early One Morning (2003), oil on painted and stitched canvas. It is a work of contradiction, of order in disarray or disorder in an array of strokes and colors. Eminent Filipino scholar and musician Felipe de Leon wrote about how the common Filipino is inherently maximalist. The inclination towards filling one’s space with as much as possible, according to de Leon, is rooted in emotional sensitivity and a strong urge to connect. I wonder whether this artwork, created towards the end of her life, is somehow a reference to how her home was always bustling with activity. There is a sense of serenity and familiarity in the midst of the busy strokes and clashing colors in geometric shapes and dots.

Abad was part of a political family in Basco, Batanes, a province far north of the Philippines and home to the Ivatan tribe. To this day, family members serve in the government in one way or another. Pacita Abad’s parents, Aurora and Jorge, both politicians who served Batanes in the late 1940s through the 1970s, were staunch critics of the Marcos dictatorship. It is worth noting that a nephew, Pio Abad, has followed in Pacita’s footsteps and is also an artist who works with textiles. He has also taken the task of continuing to critique the Marcoses through art.

Early one morning, her home was gunned down. Though no one was hurt, the incident was enough for Jorge Abad to send Pacita to Madrid in order to continue her studies in law. However, her stay in San Francisco changed the trajectory of her life and she became an artist in the United States. This was, as evidenced in her artworks and interviews, a positive diversion.

The term ‘soft’ is used in talking about Abad’s trapunto pieces. Watching her interview with filmmaker Kavery Kaul, Wild at Art (1995), one can see that Abad would be an easy person to love. Kaul asks her what her contribution to the United States was, and she answers exuberantly, “Color!” She is the quintessential Filipino auntie, after all. Candid but not candy-sweet, with just the right amount of warmth and political punch. Her artworks—paintings, trapuntos, and prints—convey hard ambiguities that can’t just be dismissed as colorful abstractions or dated political commentaries.

ZENY RECIDORO-FESH
Queens, New York City May 2024