Pablo Helguera

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...

End-of-summer thoughs on personal sanctuaries:

pablohelguera.substack.com/p/primordial...

Cruceño Understories [Letter from Bolivia]

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...

Public and Private Purpose Keeping our artist statements to ourselves.

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...

Gray Impala (And other heroic family cars)

A micro-memoir and a tribute to the family car

pablohelguera.substack.com/p/gray-impala

Art and Social Fabric in San Cristóbal 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...

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/...

The Trial (scenes and excerpts) Illustrations 100 years after the first publication of Kafka's The Trial (April 1925)

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-...

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Music Therapy 5 years after The Grand Central Singing Telegram Co.

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.

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# pablohelguera.substack.com/p/music-ther...

A Rebel's Toolkit Part 1: Absurdist Common Sense

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?
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pablohelguera.substack.com/p/a-rebels-t...

Fanciful Topophilia On archaeological reproductions in restaurants.

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...

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.

Here is a reflection on the dialectics of beauty and ugliness for art making in these undeniably ugly political times.

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pablohelguera.substack.com/p/beautiful-...

Yearning for Known Quantities Musings in a Mexico City café.

Yesterday morning I was in sitting in Vips in Mexico City’s colonia Roma and wrote this note. #beautifuleccentrics

open.substack.com/pub/pablohel...

Spillover and Severance Performing the divided self.

Thinking today about identity borders in work and life, and how they often merge ( sometimes as art)

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pablohelguera.substack.com/p/spillover-...

Image: Detail from Frida Kahlo’s Las dos Fridas (The Two Fridas), 1939

Chasing the Shadows of Butterflies (A beginning-of-year note)

On whether we can steer what drives us:

pablohelguera.substack.com/p/chasing-th...

12 Images in the Guise of Grapes Celebrating ordinary moments.

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-...

Streaming Macondo Bringing One Hundred Years of Solitude to the screen.

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.
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pablohelguera.substack.com/p/streaming-...

RBG’s Pendulum On the structure of conservative counter-revolutions.

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...
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The Estheticist is back! Send a question concerning any ethical, conceptual, personal, legal, philosophical, and/or practical dilemmas at theestheticist@gmail.com. The column comes out on Thursday. #beautifuleccentrics

When True Simplicity is Gained A Shaker notebook.

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-...

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Meditations in an American Mall (a performance lecture)

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.