
HELGUERA PABLO
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO [1971]
Helguera began exhibiting as an artist in Mexico City in 1998, and for the first time in New York at the Bronx Museum of Art as well as the Museo del Barrio in 2001. Since that time, he has completed over 50 One Person Exhibitions and Performances throughout the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Croatia, Belgium, Puerto Rico, Italy, the United Kingdom and most recently Germany. Helguera has also authored over 18 publications including Education for Socially Engaged Art: A Materials and Techniques Handbook, The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style, What in the World: A Museum’s Subjective Biography, The School of Panamerican Unrest, both in English as well as Spanish.
One recent project, Libreria Donceles, comments on the vanishing culture of the bookstore, the passage of personal libraries to new users, but more importantly the vanishing availability of books in the Spanish language. The project was assembled by the artist with Kent Fine Art in New York. By rendering visibility to the Spanish language in an American city, Librería Donceles affirms the importance of the cultural dimension of the language and raises questions about how Spanish might be reconnected to its diaspora, as well as integrated into the broader cultural life of New York. Donceles has subsequently travelled to the Arizona State University Art Museum, the Kadist Art Foundation in San Francisco, Red Hook, New York (now) with the sponsorship of Blade of Grass, and soon to the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, Washington.
Helguera's work has been described as "socially engaged", creating works engaging communities in local or global issues.
He is currently the director of adult and academic programs at the New York Museum of Modern Art.