Pacita Abad Narrative Project

Pacita Abad.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

October 21, 2023—January 28, 2024

Pacita Abad.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

October 21, 2023—January 28, 2024

Pacita Abad is organized by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

Generous support for Pacita Abad at SFMOMA is provided by the Neal Benezra Exhibition Fund and The Elaine McKeon Endowed Exhibition Fund.

Meaningful support is provided by Jill Cowan and Stephen Davis, the Mary Jane Elmore West Coast Exhibition Fund, Ella Qing Hou and J. Sanford Miller, Rummi and Arun Sarin Painting and Sculpture Fund, Pat Wilson, and Salle Yoo and Jeffrey Gray.

Community support is provided by the Stuart G. Moldaw Public Program and Exhibition Fund. The Walker Art Center organized the exhibition with major support provided by Martha and Bruce Atwater; Ford Foundation; the Henry Luce Foundation; the Martin and Brown Foundation; Rosemary and Kevin McNeely, Manitou Fund; and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Exhibition curated by Victoria Sung, Phyllis C. Wattis Senior Curator at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), and former associate curator, Visual Arts, Walker Art Center; with Matthew Villar Miranda, curatorial associate at BAMPFA, and former curatorial fellow, Visual Arts, Walker Art Center. SFMOMA’s presentation is organized by Eungie Joo, curator and head, contemporary art, and Nancy Lim, associate curator, painting and sculpture, with Alison Guh, curatorial associate, contemporary art.

Contents

I have always believed that an artist has a special obligation to remind society of its social responsibility.

Pacita Abad

Born in the Philippines to a family of politicians, Abad was greatly influenced by her family’s public service. In 1970, after leading a student demonstration against the Marcos regime, Abad left the Philippines. She intended to move to Madrid to finish a degree in law, but a stop in San Francisco to visit relatives became a long-term stay that would change the trajectory of her life.

1970s San Francisco was a hub of counter-culture and social movements and, for Abad, a formative place of creative origin. Here, she met Asian and Latin American immigrants who had left their home countries for economic or sociopolitical reasons. Their stories initially inspired her to pursue studies in immigration law so that she could advocate for their causes.

At the same time, Abad immersed herself in the local art scene and fell in love with art as a master’s student in history at Lone Mountain College (now part of the University of San Francisco) after working as the school’s Coordinator

of Cultural Affairs. Though Abad received a scholarship to attend law school at UC Berkeley following her master’s degree, the artist chose to forgo her acceptance for travel and research. Art soon became the conduit and catalyst through which she advocated for marginalized people. Abad became a prolific artist, and her choice of unstretched canvases as her primary medium gave her mobility as she traveled to and lived in over 60 countries with her husband, Jack Garrity, who worked as a development economist for international organizations. Her travels had an enormous impact on her practice as far as forms, materials, motivations, and visual traditions she’d learned about, from sewing and stitching techniques from Rabari women in Rajasthan to mirror embroidery in India.

From Bangladesh to Turkey to Sudan, Abad sought out informal communities of women artists and artisans, eager for an exchange of skills and ideas.

Exhibit

A prolific artist, Pacita Abad (b. 1946, Bascom Philippines; d. 2004, Singapore) produced more than 5,000 works across her career—from representational portrayals of migration to effervescent abstractions and exhuberant masks. Organized thematically, the galleries showcase her bold experiments combining paint and drawing with imrpovised appliqué and quiltinh techniques, revealing visual, material, and conceptual concerns that still resonate today.

When the 24-year-old Abad left Manila in 1970, she stopped to visit her aunt in San Francisco where she found a city thrumming with radical political and creative activity, from the Women’s Liberation, Black Power, and antiwar movements to the Asian American occupation of the I-Hotel in Manilatown. She immersed herself in the city, connecting with other immigrants, working at a non-governmental organization (NGO), and

studying for her master’s degree in history at Lone Mountain College, now the University of San Francisco. This contect of Bay Area progressivism formed the crucible of her growing engagement with art. Her extensive world travels, beginning in 1973, solidified her commitment.

From Bangladesh to Turkey to Sudan, Abad sought out informal communities of women artists and arisans, eager for an exchange of skills and ideas. She traveled to sixty-three countries on six continents, absorbing textile traditions and techniques including Milan mud cloth, Nigerian tie-dye, and Indonesian batik. These lessons fount their greatest expression in her trapunto paintings: canvases that she painted, stuffed, and richly embelished with buttons, cowrie shells, beads, and mirros. She created hundreds of magnificently textured trapuntos, occasionally enlisting the help of family members and assistants, thereby evking the commual making that inspired her.

Abad’s embrace of quilting and other kinds of needlework confounded critics, who dismissed her works as naive, childlike, an ethnic. In fact, Abad’s multifaceted practice articulated a powerful material politics, reflecting her vision of nonhierarchical world. This exhibition celebrates Abad’s bold self-determination, commitment to social justice, and radical artistic experimentation.

While traveling through the Philippines, Abad collected bits of fabric, eventually creating this sampler of Indigenous textile work from the 7,641 islands that comprised the Philippines.

100 Years of Freedom: Batabes to Jolo, 1998

Oil, acrylic paint, and Philippine cloth (abaca, pineapple, jusi, and banana fibers; Baguio itkat; Batanes cotton crochet; llocano cotton; Chinese silk and bead; Spanish silk; llongo cloth; Mindanao beads, Zamboanga and Yakan handwoven cloth and sequins) on stitched and dyed cotton fabric.

While traveling through the Philippines, Abad collected bits of fabric, eventually creating this sampler of Indigenous textile work from the 7,641 islands that comprised the Philippines. Thus what may appear as a random assortment of fabrics, from Chinese floral silks from Binondo to her grandmother’s Spanish lace mantilla from Cebu, In fact narrates a complex history of the country, which is home to 182 ethnolinguistic groups,

110 of which are Indigenous. For centuries, the Philippines participated n precolonial networks of maritime exchange with peoples from Asia, the Americas, and Europe before the successive waves of Spanish, Japanese, and American colonization began in the sixteenth century.

If My Friends Could See Me Now, 1991

Acrylic paint, painted canvas, and gold yarn on stitched and padded canvas

Here, the central figure stand beneath San Francisco’s nocturnal skyline, surrounded by the promises of the so-called American Dream—white picket fences, an overflowing grocery cart, and a road outlined in gold. Abad’s protagonist is cut directly out of the painting Thanh Lo (1980) from her Cambodian Refugee series (1979-80), portraits of those seeking refuge in humanitarian camps across the Thai border. Re-situated in a US context, Thanh Lo stands with arms crossed amid this tapestry of vignettes of Americana, exuding ambiance about whether she has achieved these dreams through her journey—or whether these are her dreams at all.

Immigrant Experience 01

LA Liberty, 1992

Acrylic paint, cotton yarn, plastic buttons, mirrors, gold thread, and painted cloth on stitched and padded canvas

In 1983 Abad began a series of paintings illuminating the everyday realities of immigrants in the United States. Some works center the triumphs and sufferings of people on the periphery of power, while others refer to specific events such as the Haitian Refugee Crisis (1991–94), the Los Angeles Uprising (1992), and

the ongoing detension of migrants of color at larger-than-life scale. Abad made space for those whose stories are often reduced by racism. These works were first exhibited as a group in 1994, the same year she became a US citizen.

Breastfeeding Mother, 1981

02

Social Realist Works

Abad’s paintings from this period included portraits that captured the suffering experienced by people held at refugee camps on the Thai-Cambodian border.

Traveling with a sketchbook in hand, Abad documented the people and places she encountered. From the bustling city life in Bangladesh to a nursing mother she befriended during an artist residency in the Dominican Republic, Abad’s canvases captured the world around her.

When Abad moved to Thailand in 1979, the country was in the middle of a humanitarian crisis. The violence of the Khmer Rouge regime (1975—79), followed by Vietnam’s intervention in Cambodia, resulted in the dealth and displacement of millions of refugees. Abad’s paintings from this period included portraits that captured the suffering experienced by people held at refugee camps on the Thai-Cambodian border.

Flight to Freedom, 1980

Acrylic paint and oil on canvas

After the media coverage ends, I want my paintings to keep staring at you. — Pacita Abad

Inspired by photoraphs printed in the Bankok Post and by the work of photojournalist friends, this painting depicts families carrying their only belongings across harsh terrain. Originally concieved as a treaveling mural, this 15-foot painting is amongst the largest and most historically significant works from Abad’s Cambodian Refugee series. The painting shows the toll of the Cold War–era proxy wars in

Southeast Asia, images of which were beginning to fill the global press. Interested in conveying the extraordinary struggles of displaced peoples and in moving witness from sympathy to action, Abad stated, “After the media coverage ends, I want my paintings to keep staring at you.”

Water of Life, 1980

Oil on canvas

Inspired by a widely circulated photograph from a refugee camp at the border of Thailand and Cambodia, this work shows a tender moment of a mother gently tilting her child’s head for a drink of water. While many of Abad’s works from this series depict thr everyday struggles of refugees, they also emphasize the resilience of human beings during times of extreme adersity. In particular, the artist was drawn to the woman and children who comprised the majority of the refugee populations, and she often portrayed the intimate bond between mother and child.

The artist was drawn to the woman and children who comprised the majority of the refugee populations, and she often portrayed the intimate bond between mother and child.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Korean Shopkeepers, 1993

Acrylic paint, oil, plastic buttons, sequins, beads, yard, and painted cloth on stitched and padded canvas

The conflicts and ongoing media coverage inflamed tensions across the country, putting communities of color against each another.

Abad made Korean Shopkeepers after the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising—an event sparked by the acquittai of four police officers who brutally beat Rodney King and the controversial sentencing of Soon Ja Du, a Korean shopkeeper who shot and killed Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old African American girl. The conflicts and ongoing media coverage inflamed tensions across the country, putting communities of color against each another. In contrast, Abad crafts a harmonious scene brimming with fruits and abundance. Here, shopkeepers and patrons come together in a space of mutual respect, moving beyond the conflicts and injustices encountered in daily life.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Masks and Spirits

In each of the countries where she lived and worked, Abad immersed herself in communities of artists and other makers. Together, they exchanged materials and techniques as well as cultural practices. Abad found inspiration for her work in everything from anito ancestral spirits in the Philippines to wayang shadow puppets in Indonesia. In particular, she was drawn to global masking traditions used in religious, ceremonial, and artistic contests, such as Sepik masks in Papa New Guinea. In her work, she often explored ways that masks could serve as vessels for both individual expression and collective storytelling.

This gallery features Abad’s monumental grouping of paintings Masks from Six Continents (1990— 93), on view for the first time in more than thirty years. Five of the paintings reference masking cultures from Oceania, North and South America, Africa, and Asia, while the sixth mask references Western Europe’s colonial gaze on other cultures. Abad created Masks from Six Continents after receiving a public commission from the metro Center in Washington, DC, in 1990. Recognizing the metro Center’s role as a major transit hub, where people from different countries cross paths during their daily commutes, she was keen to construct a work encompassing the six inhabitable continents of the world.

In each of the countries where she lived and worked, Abad immersed herself in communities of artists and other makers.

European Mask, 1990

Acrylic paint, screen print, and thread on canvas

Oceania Mask (Dancing Demon), 1990

Acrylic paint and cowrie shells on stitched and padded canvas

Hopi Mask, 1990

Acrylic paint, yarn, and sequins on stitched and padded canvas

Myan Mask, 1990

Acrylic paint, buttons, beads, mirrors, hand-woven cloth, and rick rack ribbons on padded cloth

Recognizing the metro Center’s role as a major transit hub, where people from different countries cross paths during their daily commutes, she was keen to construct a work encompassing the six inhabitable continents of the world.

African Mask, 1990

Acrylic paint, beads, shells, handwoven yarn, and painted canvas on stitched and padded cloth

Subali, 1983/1990

Acrylic paint, oil, gold cotton, batik cloth, sequins, and rick rack ribbons on stitched and padded canvas

Masai Man, 1982

Acrylic paint, plastic beads, rick rack ribbon, and painted cloth on stitched and padded canvas

While living in Boston from 1980 to 1982, Abad met weekly with other women to make art. Her friend Barbara Newman—an artist who makes puppets and other figurative sculptures—taught her the trapunto quilting technique, which Abad used to stitch and stuff her canvases. One of Abad’s earliest trapunto paintings, this work references a wooden maasai mask that the artist saw while traveling in Kenya. Abad also adopted mirrored shisha embroidery from India and cowrie shells from Papa New Guinea, incorporating their history and symbolism as aesthetic, spiritual, and trade objects in parts of Africa and Oceania. The result is a rich tapestry of influence that became Abad’s trademark form.

Underwater Wilderness 04

The rich flora and fauna of the worlds she witnessed beneath the sea provided new inspiration for her to use color, texture, and pattern.

In the mid–1980s, Abad learned to scuba dive. The rich flora and fauna of the worlds she witnessed beneath the sea provided new inspiration for her to use color, texture, and pattern. Taking her cue from the sub-aquatic realm, Abad created a group of large-scale trapunto paintings the depict brilliantly colored scenes of marine life. The series underscores the artist’s sensitivity to the precarious nature of Earth’s ecosystems. “It is such a peaceful environment down there that one feels like an infidel intruding into somewhere sacred,” she said. “Every time I dive, I feel like saying, ’Excuse me, but here I come again!”

When these works were first shown in 1986, Abad constructed an immersive experience, covering the gallery walls with her trapunto paintings and suspending soft sculptures of squid and other creatures from the ceiling. Materials such as fishing nets, sand, and shells were strewn across the floor. With goggles atop her head and flippers on her feed, Abad arrived at the opening in scuba gear, as if ready to dive into her imagined world.

Hundred Islands, 1989

Oil, acrylic paint, glitter, gold thread, buttons, lace, and sequins on stitched and padded canvas

(Close Up)

It is such a peaceful environment down there that one feels like an infidel intruding into somewhere sacred, she said. Every time I dive, I feel like saying, Excuse me, but here I come again!

HuPuland Buli off Batangas, 1986

Acrylic paint, mirrors, buttons, and cotton yarn on stitched and padded canvas (Right)

Anilao at Its Best, 1986

Oil, acrylic paint, plastic buttons, and rhinestones on stitched and padded canvas

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Abstractions

When asked in a 1991 interview what she felt she had contributed to art in the United States, Abad exclaimed, “Color! I have given it color!” The artist joyous refused to leave white space in her paintings, her clothing, or her home, filling ever surface with pattern and pigment. Abad’s love of color can also be interpreted as a strategy of resistance to the muted tones and clean lines of Western forms of modernism. She recalled, “[A friend] said that my colors were losing intensity, and right then and there I knew it was time to get back to my Asian roots.”

In The Sky Is Falling The Sky Is Falling, made when she was living in Indonesia in 1998, a frenzy of rainbow colored paint, beads, and buttons, echo’s both the downward spiral of the country’s currency and the mass protests that followed.

In other works, Abad drew from her lived experience through periods of political turmoil.

In The Sky Is Falling The Sky Is Falling, made when she was living in Indonesia in 1998, a frenzy of rainbow-colored paint, beads, and buttons, echoes both the downward spiral of the country’s currency and the mass protests that followed.

For Abad, color was political. Her work titled White Heightens the Awareness of the Senses, for example, evokes author Zora Neale Hurston’s iconic statement, “I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp while background.”

The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling, 1998

Oil, plastic buttons, plastic beads, and painted cloth on stitched and padded canvas

Liquid Experience, 1985

The Marcos region (1965 86) initiated large-scale infrastructure projects across the Philippines—erecting city walls—in a show of presidential power. This work was influenced by the colorful layer of peeling paint in Manila and other urban areas in Latin American, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Bright reds and pinks pool together

with remnants of graffiti and an underlying of green, blur, and purple hues. With its coded reference to the country’s declining infrastructure, Abad’s celebration of color is also a sharp critique of the Marcos administration and its endorsement of Western forms of Modernism.

Oil on stitched and padded canvas with mirrors

White Heightens the Awareness of the Senses, 1998

Oil, acrylic paint, oil pastel, dyed cotton, painted canvas, and painted cloth on stitched canvas.

Spring is Coming, 2001

Oil and painted cloth on stitched canvas

[A friend] said that my colors were losing intensity, and right then and there I knew it was time to get back to my Asian roots... I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp while background. — Pacita Abad

(Right)

(Left)

Credits

Designer: Era Mahoney

Arwork: Pacita Abad

Typography:

Adobe Garamond Pro 8.5pt / 12.5pt

Rockwell 25pt / 12.5pt | 13pt / 16.9pt

Neue Haas Unica W1G 13pt / 16.9pt

Body Copy: SFMOMA website and Pacita Abad exhibition

Experience vibrant works by a daring artist who traveled the world.