Please join Ulises, in partnership with Graduate Studies at Moore College of Art and Design, for a combinatory lecture with multidisciplinary artist and educator Pablo Helguera organized in conjunction with Ulises’ current quarterly theme "Education." This performance workshop, which incorporates aspects of public speaking and education, consists in the collective writing and presenting of a co-authored lecture. No previous experience of any kind is needed. Different versions of the Combinatory lecture have been presented at the MUAC, Mexico City, Neon Gallery in Bologna Italy, Museo del Hombre in Gran Canaria, and many other locations.
Pablo Helguera (b. Mexico City, 1971) is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in New York City. Working in performance, photography, drawing, installation, lectures, and musical composition, among other diverse media, he creates artworks that investigate topics such as history, pedagogy, sociolinguistics, ethnography, memory, and the absurd. Helguera’s projects often blur the line between pedagogy and politically engaged art, raising the question of how educational methodologies can contribute to Social Practice, and vice versa.
Throughout his career, Helguera has worked at the intersection of art and education. He attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, both an art school and a museum, where he worked in the museum education department while earning his BFA. He has since held positions in education at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and is currently the Director of Adult and Academic Programs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Helguera’s tenure as a museum professional informs his art. Invested in social practice, he critiques cultural institutions, while respecting their potential, with the aim of redirecting their power. Such an approach underlies The School of Panamerican Unrest (2003–2006), a community-oriented think tank whose open ended organizational structure invites audiences to consider what an educational institution can be.
Helguera has performed and exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the Americas. His works have been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Museo de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Brooklyn Museum, the Guggenheim, and many others. He is the recipient of awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation/Fideicomiso para la Cultura Mexico, Creative Capital, Franklin Furnace, and a Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art from A Blade of Grass. His publications include The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style (2005), What in the World: A Museum’s Subjective Biography (2010), Education for Socially Engaged Art: A Materials and Techniques Handbook (2011), The School of Panamerican Unrest: An Anthology of Documents (with Sarah Demeuse) (2011) and Art Scenes: The Social Scripts of the Art World (2012). In 2012, he received a PhD from Kingston University in London.
