Jose Abad Lorente
Biography and Art Practice
Josè Abad Lorente
Born in 1970 Murcia, Spain
On Curating
I have lived and work in Asia for last two decades and I have developed a career between China, India and Myanmar. I first studied in Beijing, co-founded an art-space in New Delhi, co-established the My Yangon My Home Art and Heritage Festival in Yangon.
In Beijing I established La Casa. This project was inspired by everyday life, and was a pioneering curating project based on making exhibitions in peoples’ private homes. With this simple but at that time innovative idea we were able to exhibit art in a more relaxed way than a gallery and to explore the interaction of art and living.
In New Delhi, India I opened Abadi Art Space, an artist-run gallery. During the five years directing the gallery we to took part the Indian contemporary art scene and participate in Indian Art Fair 2011.
In Yangon, I co-founded the My Yangon My Home - Art and Heritage Festival. The festival was inspired by the city’s people, the teashops, the street food and their daily lives. It aimed to help them to re-think their historic and shared memories, their personal narratives and their local knowledge. My Yangon My Home now acts as trademark delivering cultural events and exhibitions all year around.
Art Practice
In Beijing, China I explored calligraphy and abstract painting through self-expression, action painting and body movement. I followed up my practice with an M.A. thesis on disability and representation. Using auto-ethnographic research, I changed the brush for the camera as a way to trace my body movements as a one-handed person and raise the question: what is ability or disability?
Through a personal journey of artistic experimentation across Asia, I became interested in topics such us in China’s calligraphy, art and language. In Indian epistemology, and in Myanmar linguistic history, Buddhism and anthropology.
As part of my ongoing art project “Medical Calligraphies” based on disability, representation. In Myanmar I developed an art project based on dyslexia, calligraphy. Words as lines and threads as text are visual images in my head. Dys - difficult, lexis – words; the difficulty of dealing with words. This cross-disciplinary art practice-based research explores to explore the connection between, art and language, oral and written traditions, sound and signs, text and threads.
Interested to represent text from personal experience to an artistic mode, I based my work on looking at tracing marks and patterns, vital energy and movement, mindfulness and memory.
Within this geographical triangle of China India, and Myanmar, the project aims to not only map my lived experiences, but also the learning process as my way of producing art through, writing, scribbling and drawing.
EDUCATION
2016-7 Inter. Buddhist Theravada Missionary University. Yangon. Myanmar
Dhamma Diploma
2000-05 Goldsmiths College. University of London. United Kingdom
Master of Arts: Photography and Urban Cultures
2000-02 Central Academy of Fine Art Beijing. China, Advanced Studies In Chinese Art and Calligraphy
1991-3 School of Plastic Arts and Craft. Murcia. Spain
SELECT INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVES EXHIBITIONS
2019 Myanm/Art Gallery Yangon. Myanmar
Ind-Exh; Words - Lines –Threads
2015 My Yangon My Home – Art and Heritage Festival Yangon. Myanmar
Col-Exh; Jose Abad Lorente
2014 TS1 Gallery. Yangon. Myanmar
Col-Exh; “I Am Proud” Contemporary Identities
2013 Devi Art Foundation. New Delhi, New Delhi. India
Col-Exh; “Morphing” as part of Sarai Reader 09: The Exhibition
Curated by Raq Media Collective
2013 Open House. New Delhi. India
Col-Exh; “Wall-to-Wall” Curated by Anne Maniglier
2012 Engendered Space. New Delhi
Col-Exh; Can you see Me? Curated by Myna Mukherjee
2009 Abadi Art Space, New Delhi, India.
Coll-Exh; "Made in China: International Artist from Beijing"
2008 Abadi Art Space. New Delhi. India
Col-Exh; “Picturing the Body”
2008 Khoj – International Artists Association. Delhi. India
Ind-Exhi; “Body/Text - Body Calligraphy”
2006 CIP House Exhibition, London. United Kingdom
Coll- Exh; “Notion of Drawings”
2006 Marc Town Hall, Cambridge. United Kingdom
Coll-Exh; “he-ART” Auction Exhi. Papworth Hospital Cambridge
2005 APT Gallery, Deptford, London United Kingdom
Coll-Exh; “Urban Vision” Contemporary Photography
2004 XV International AIDS Conference. Bangkok. Thailand, Coll-Exh.: “Positive Art Workshop”
2003 La Casa Art Projects: Public & Participatory Art. Beijing. China
Coll-Exh; “Positive Art Positives Lives”
2002 Kwang Hwa Information & Cultural Centre. Hong Kong
Coll-Exh; “Identity Mutations- Experimenting the City”
2000 La Casa Art Projects Studios, Beijing. China
Coll-Exh; “Fresh Art” La Casa Inaugural Exhi.
2000 Chaoyang Cultural Centre. Beijing. China, Coll-Exh; “Avant-garde Calligraphy”
1998 Construction University, Beijing. China
Coll-Exh; “Counter – Perspectives – The environment and Us”
1997 Sala de Arte Añepa. La Orotava.Tenerife. Spain
Ind-Exh;“Contemporary Paintings”
SELECT CURATED EXHIBITION AND ART PROJECTS
2014-20 My Yangon My Home – Art and Heritage Festival
Artistic Director Jose Abad Lorente
2013 Abadi Art Space. New Delhi. India
The Writing Room Edition 1, 2, 3, 4
2012-2013 Abadi Art Space & Engendere Space. New Delhi. India.
Co-curated Exh. Queer Making I & II
2012 Abadi Art Space. New Delhi. India
Curated Exh. Home Memories
2012 Indian Art Fair & Abadi Art Space. New Delhi. India.
Curated Exh. “ Decadence- a Present History
2011-2 Abadi Art Space. New Delhi. India
Curated Exh. The Solo Show Project
2011 Abadi Art Space. New Delhi. India
Curated Exh. The Color Blue Black & White and The Red
2010 Pink Space, Sexuality Research Centre, Beijing. China
Art Project “I Also Love you” Community art project with people with learning difficulties.
2009 Abadi Art Space. New Delhi. India
Curated Exh. “I am not him” Sexual Identities & Social Class
2009 Abadi Art Space, New Delhi. India
Curated Exh. “Made in China: Inter. Artist from Beijing”
2008 Abadi Art Space. New Delhi. India
Curated Exhi. “Picturing the Body”
2000/4 La Casa-Art Projects, Beijing. China, Co-founder & Curator.
Independent curating contemporary art outside the galleries
SELECT GRANTS & AWARDS
2018 Brooke International Fellowship Program 2019
Tate Exchange, Program. London. U.K. - Shortlisted
2007 Khoj – International Artist Association, N.Delhi. India
Sponsorships: Spanish Embassy in New Delhi. India
Art Associate Residence, Project: Body/Text.
2004 XV International AIDS Conference. Bangkok. Thailand
Silabaha: Community & Cultural Programs
Presented Project : Positive Art Workshop
2002 Ford Foundation USA. Beijing Office. China
“Positive Art Workshop:” Art & Calligraphy as therapy
with people living with HIV/AIDS.
2000-02 Central Academy of Fine Art Beijing, China
Beca MAED-AECID
Spanish Agency for International Cooperation
Advanced Studies In Chinese Art and Calligraphy