Pablo Helguera
@pablohelguera.bsky.social
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Artist, educator, performer, storyteller, observer
End-of-summer thoughs on personal sanctuaries:
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/primordial...
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Primordial Place
The term “Third Place,” coined in 1989 by sociologist Ray Oldenburg to describe a space that is neither home nor work but somewhere in between, offering a balance of comfort and structure conducive to...
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/primordial-place?utm_campaign=comment&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post
8 months ago
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A tale of two countries, the missing bones of a national hero, a teaching snake, the trickster ghost of a conceptual artist: I left Santa Cruz, Bolivia, thinking about the importance of understories. ( incluye versión en español)
#beautifuleccentrics
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/cruceno-un...
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Cruceño Understories
[Letter from Bolivia]
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/cruceno-understories
9 months ago
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What if we stopped announcing artistic purpose like a press release? Here are some thoughts on self-transcendence, quiet integrity, and how to sidestep the art world’s performance trap.
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/public-and...
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Public and Private Purpose
Keeping our artist statements to ourselves.
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/public-and-private-purpose
9 months ago
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A micro-memoir and a tribute to the family car
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/gray-impala
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Gray Impala
(And other heroic family cars)
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/gray-impala
11 months ago
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Finally, after a full year of work, I am thrilled to share a piece I wrote for Places Journal- a piece about Carlos Barrera Reyes , a Mexican socially engaged artist seeking to revive the indigenous tradition of natural dyes in textiles in Chiapas.
placesjournal.org/article/a-ge...
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Art and Social Fabric in San CristĂłbal de Las Casas
In Chiapas, Mexico, the Mayan tradition of using natural dyes in textiles was disappearing — until one artist helped local weavers relearn the Indigenous methods. This is the crux and challenge of soc...
https://placesjournal.org/article/a-genealogy-of-colors-chiapas-mexico/
11 months ago
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I am delighted to share that I am curating a show at the MCA Chicago— a place that is very special for me as I worked there once as a young museum educator. My proposal was to develop the exhibition through conversations with Chicago artists and activists .
visit.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/...
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» Collection in Conversation with Pablo Helguera
https://visit.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/collection-in-conversation-with-pablo-helguera/
11 months ago
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April 2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Kafka's The Trial. I have been working on illustrations for a new edition, imagining the book as a sequence of mise-en-scènes.
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/the-trial-...
#beautifuleccentrics
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The Trial (scenes and excerpts)
Illustrations 100 years after the first publication of Kafka's The Trial (April 1925)
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/the-trial-scenes-and-excerpts
12 months ago
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During the Covid pandemic in 2020 I delivered free singing telegrams to countless people all over the world over the course of a month and a half. Here is the story.
#beautifuleccentrics
#
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/music-ther...
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Music Therapy
5 years after The Grand Central Singing Telegram Co.
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/music-therapy
about 1 year ago
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Today's political reality presents the question of how we can push back, not just with anger or cynicism, but also with new, creative models and ideas. An idea: can we be common-sense absurdists?
#beautifuleccentrics
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/a-rebels-t...
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A Rebel's Toolkit
Part 1: Absurdist Common Sense
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/a-rebels-toolkit
about 1 year ago
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I wrote about a series of works by Ruben Ortiz-Torres that particularly interested me: palladium prints of Peruvian restaurants in Southern California with depictions of Machu Picchu.
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/fanciful-t...
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Fanciful Topophilia
On archaeological reproductions in restaurants.
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/fanciful-topophilia
about 1 year ago
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Here is a reflection on the dialectics of beauty and ugliness for art making in these undeniably ugly political times.
#beautifuleccentrics
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/beautiful-...
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The Beautiful Protest
A few weeks ago I was in a group conversation with art collectors, most of which are supporters of contemporary art organizations.
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/beautiful-protest
about 1 year ago
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Yesterday morning I was in sitting in Vips in Mexico City’s colonia Roma and wrote this note.
#beautifuleccentrics
open.substack.com/pub/pablohel...
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Yearning for Known Quantities
Musings in a Mexico City café.
https://open.substack.com/pub/pablohelguera/p/yearning-for-known-quantities?r=d15aj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
about 1 year ago
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Thinking today about identity borders in work and life, and how they often merge ( sometimes as art)
#beautifuleccentrics
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/spillover-...
Image: Detail from Frida Kahlo’s Las dos Fridas (The Two Fridas), 1939
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Spillover and Severance
Performing the divided self.
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/spillover-and-severance
about 1 year ago
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On whether we can steer what drives us:
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/chasing-th...
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Chasing the Shadows of Butterflies
(A beginning-of-year note)
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/chasing-the-shadows-of-butterflies
over 1 year ago
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On these days when we get a deluge of “best of year” lists, I want to celebrate instead the ordinary, everyday moments that are meaningful to us. Here is a small reflection on that on the last hours of 2024. Happy new year.
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/12-images-...
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12 Images in the Guise of Grapes
Celebrating ordinary moments.
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/12-images-in-the-guise-of-grapes
over 1 year ago
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Last week Netflix launched a series after GarcĂa Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. The author opposed selling the rights for a film adaptation, but his sons took that step after his passing. Here are some thoughts on the topic.
#beautifuleccentrics
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/streaming-...
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Streaming Macondo
Bringing One Hundred Years of Solitude to the screen.
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/streaming-macondo
over 1 year ago
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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg used to say that democracy is like a pendulum, swinging back and forth in a fashion that incrementally leads to progress. Here are some thoughts on how these swings have played out in recent decades in regard to culture.
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/rbgs-pendu...
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RBG’s Pendulum
On the structure of conservative counter-revolutions.
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/rbgs-pendulum
over 1 year ago
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How to channel rage creatively? What happens if we are unexpectedly left with managing an artist's estate? How to think about art works by other artists that look a lot like ours? The December edition of The Estheticist is here.
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/the-esthet...
#beautifuleccentrics
over 1 year ago
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The Estheticist is back! Send a question concerning any ethical, conceptual, personal, legal, philosophical, and/or practical dilemmas at
[email protected]
. The column comes out on Thursday.
#beautifuleccentrics
over 1 year ago
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The American Folk Art Museum has a great exhibition of Shaker gift drawings on view. Here are some notes about how their ideas and ethos can serve us as a guide today.
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/when-true-...
#beautifuleccentrics
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When True Simplicity is Gained
A Shaker notebook.
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/when-true-simplicity-is-gained
over 1 year ago
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last week’s column, touching on how hyperreality strikes back:
pablohelguera.substack.com/p/meditation...
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Meditations in an American Mall
(a performance lecture)
https://pablohelguera.substack.com/p/meditations-in-an-american-mall
over 1 year ago
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I arrived! Looking forward to finding new views from this perch.
over 1 year ago
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you reached the end!!
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