End-of-summer thoughs on personal sanctuaries: pablohelguera.substack.com/p/primordial...

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...

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...

A micro-memoir and a tribute to the family car pablohelguera.substack.com/p/gray-impala

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...

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/...

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

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...

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...

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...

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-...

Yesterday morning I was in sitting in Vips in Mexico City’s colonia Roma and wrote this note. #beautifuleccentrics open.substack.com/pub/pablohel...

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

On whether we can steer what drives us: pablohelguera.substack.com/p/chasing-th...

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-...

Last week Netflix launched a series after García 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-...

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...

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

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

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

last week’s column, touching on how hyperreality strikes back: pablohelguera.substack.com/p/meditation...

I arrived! Looking forward to finding new views from this perch.