Antoni Abad
Spain, 1956.
Lives and works in Barcelona, Spain.
Abad obtained a History of Art degree at Barcelona
University (1979) and a MFA European Media Master at the Pompeu Fabra University
(Barcelona, 1997). After experimenting with sculpture, photography and expanded
video, he focussed his artistic work on the Internet, which now provides him
with the raw material for his current work.
From 2004 to 2013 he devoted his energies to starting up online communication
projects such as www.megafone.net, based on smartphone posts created by a variety of
groups at risk of exclusion in Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain,
Switzerland, United States and the Algerian Desert.
In October 2014 he started to work in Rome, developing www.blind.wiki, an online community for people with visual
impairments. Members use their smartphones to make geo-located audio recordings
of their everyday experiences in the city, which are accessible on the street, thus
reflecting the urban landscape exactly as experienced by people with vision
loss. The project fosters the collaborative building of open sensorial maps
that have been created for Sidney in 2015, for Berlin and Wroclaw in 2016, and
lastly for Venice in 2017.
Abad's projects have been premiered at a number of biennials, at the Venice
Biennale in 1999 and 2017; and in those of Lima, 1999; Seville, 2004 and 2008;
Mercosul Porto Alegre, 2009; Curitiba, 2013 and Berlin, 2016.
Since 1986 his work has been presented in Europe, Australia and America, at the
following venues: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Centro Centro and Matadero,
Madrid; Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin and ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; New Museum of
Contemporary Art and MoMA PS1, New York; Centre d’Art Santa Mònica, Fundació
Suñol and Museu d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona; Centre d’Art Contemporaine, Geneva;
Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires; Laboratorio de Arte Alameda, Mexico;
Centro Cultural São Paulo and Pinacoteca del Estado de São Paulo.
In 2006 he was awarded the Premio Nacional de Artes Visuales de Cataluña and the Golden Nica Digital Communities at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria.
Solo exhibitions at Freijo Gallery:
· 2019 Private Property
Group exhibitions at Freijo Gallery:
· 2022 Fame and Anonymity. Portraits
megafone.net/2004-2014, book published by MACBA, Barcelona 2014 - English edition download