Announcing FRONT Talks with Pablo Helguera. Join us!

FRONT is pleased to announce a public lecture by Pablo Helguera, the inaugural event in a new series FRONT Talks

Friday, January 26, 2024 at 12:15 pm
Cleveland Institute of Art, Peter B. Lewis Theater

Pablo Helguera's multi-disciplinary work intertwines pedagogy, theater, literature, music, and history, often in surprising ways and in unexpected formats, ranging from phonographic recordings and singing telegrams to board games and 19th-century gymnastics. For FRONT Talks, Helguera will provide an overview of his work, discussing his research process and his commitment to socially engaged art. Read his full bio below.

FRONT Talks is a series of encounters with leading artists and thinkers engaging in conversations about the practice, the experience, and the impact of contemporary art. Featuring national and international guests from across disciplines, the series is organized by FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art and presented in collaboration with partner institutions. FRONT Talks is free and open to all.

FRONT Talks with Pablo Helguera is presented in partnership with Cleveland Institute of Art’s Lunch on Fridays series. Join us!

About the artist:
Pablo Helguera (b. 1971, Mexico City) is a New York-based artist working with installation, sculpture, photography, drawing, socially engaged art, and performance. Helguera’s work focuses on various topics ranging from history, pedagogy, sociolinguistics, ethnography, memory, and the absurd in widely varied formats, including lectures, museum display strategies, musical performances, and written fiction. He is currently Assistant Professor of Arts and Entrepreneurship at the College of Performing Arts at the New School in New York.

Helguera’s work as an educator has usually intersected his interest as an artist. He has worked since 1991 in a variety of contemporary art museums, including as head of public programs at the Guggenheim Museum (1998-2005) and Director of Adult and Academic programs at the Museum of Modern Art (2007- 2020). He has organized close to 1000 public events in conjunction with nearly 100 exhibitions. His project “The School of Panamerican Unrest”, a nomadic think-tank that physically crossed the continent by car from Anchorage, Alaska, to Tierra del Fuego, making 40 stops in between and covering almost 20,000 miles, is considered one of the most extensive public art projects on record. He was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008 and also was the recipient of the Creative Capital Grant 2005, among many others.

Helguera is the author of many books, including Education for Socially Engaged Art (2011) and The Parable Conference (2014). He regularly draws Artoons, cartoons about the art world, and writes a weekly column titled Beautiful Eccentrics.

Parking: Lunch on Fridays x FRONT Talks attendees may park in any of CIA's parking lots: Lot 73, Lot 74, and the Annex Lot, all of which surround our campus. Please note that signs posted around those lots correctly state that parking typically requires a CIA permit or visitor pass and that violators will be ticketed. However, to accommodate our valued attendees, that policy won't be enforced during the program.