Born in 1971 in Mexico City, Pablo Helguera is a New York–based artist. His extensive experience as a museum educator gives him a unique vantage point from which to observe the mechanisms of the art world. He comments on situations that, while rarely discussed in public, will be instantly familiar to all those who follow or are involved in contemporary art. His Artoons series touches upon the paradoxical contradictions of the art world, in which economic interests and artists’ choices are inextricably linked, without clear indication of which one is driving the other. Helguera has been the director of adult and academic programs at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, since 2007.
Helguera has exhibited at venues including the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; the Royal College of Art, London; the Eighth Havana Biennial, PERFORMA 05; Shedhalle, Zurich; ifa-Galerie, Bonn; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum; MALBA—Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires; Ex-Teresa Espacio Alternativo, Mexico City; and, in New York, the Bronx Museum, Artists Space, Sculpture Center, MoMA PS1, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Among the artist’s numerous publications are Endingness; The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style; The Witches of Tepoztlán; The Boy Inside the Letter; Theatrum Anatomicum; The Juvenal Players and Artoons 1 and 2.