About the work

It Seems We Have Developed A Taste for Each Other’s Weaknesses No. 28, depicts an enamelled pill box from the collection of Margaret Thatcher. Abad discovered this object during an auction of the former prime minister’s personal effects shortly after her death. For Abad, the auction was a site of excavation, where the private temporarily became public and a fitting tribute to a figure who liquidated the nation’s assets. Abad began this series during the Covid-19 lockdown, among rising casualties and economic anxiety. He connects the global pandemic and how it has been felt with the policies of social austerity and deregulation of capital and labour introduced by Thatcher. The pillbox also becomes a container of paradoxes – depicting the seat of power in this country, while pointing to the inevitable demise of mental fortitude that eventually caught up with the former leader of the Conservative party.

Date and country of birth

1983, GB

Career Highlights

Pio Abad: To Those Sitting in Darkness, Ashmolean NOW, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (solo, 2024); Small World, 13th Taipei Biennial, Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2023);Guest Relations, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2023); In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire, The 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennial, Kerala (2022); Is it morning for you yet?, The 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2022); Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts, Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila (solo, 2022); Remember This House, Brent Biennial, London (2022); Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite, Kadist, San Francisco (solo, 2019); 12th Gwangju Biennale: Imagined Borders, Gwangju, Korea (2018).