In 2017, the New Britain Museum of American Art invited artist Pablo Helguera to exhibit as part of its NEW/NOW series. Inspired by New Britain’s rich industrial history and the museum’s extensive holdings of American art and illustration,Helguera wrote and illustrated three short stories, now presented in this small book. The stories draw upon the legacy of the Shakers in Connecticut, the manufacturing legacy of New Britain (once known as “the Hardware Capitol of the World”), and the biography of one of New Britain’s most illustrious residents, American artist Sol LeWitt. These stories, which interweave humor, the supernatural, and heartfelt reflections about education and the power of art making, serve as a small tribute to the history of this New England town and Museum.
About the Author
In a methodical way and recurring to strategies connected to the baroque fugue and ars combinatoria (combinatory art), Pablo Helguera (Mexico City, 1971) often draws improbable relationships between human histories, biographies, anecdotes and historical events, always bringing them all together in a cohesive whole and making all serve as a reflection on our current relationship with art as a society. Helguera often focuses on history, pedagogy, sociolinguistics and anthropology in formats such as lectures, museum displays, performance and written fiction. His project The School of Panamerican Unrest (2003-2011), an early example of pedagogically-fo- cused socially engaged art, consisted in a nomadic think-tank, physically crossed the continent by car from Anchorage to Tierra del Fuego. He has exhibited and performed widely (MoMA, Havana Biennial, Performa, Reina Sofia, amongst many others) and has been recipient of the Guggenheim, Franklin Furnace and Blade of Grass Fellowships and the Creative Capital and Art Matters grants. He was the first recipient of the International Award of Participatory Art of the Emilia Romagna Region in Italy. His book Education for Socially Engaged Art, (2011), a primer for social practice has quickly become adopted as a main textbook for art schools and university programs internationally. He is also author of several other books including The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style, Theatrum Anatomicum (and other performance lectures), What in the World, and Art Scenes: The Social Scripts of the Art World, a book on the sociology of contemporary art. In 2013 he launched the project Librería Donceles, consisting in creating the only Spanish used book- store in New York, a non-profit project intended to draw attention to the perceptions of Latin American culture in the U.S. Since 2007, he is Director of Adult and Academic Programs in the Education Department of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Currently, the Jumex Museum in Mexico City is presenting a multi-year mid-career retrospective of his work under the title Dramatis Personae.
