Pablo Helguera

Pablo Helguera's work is heavily time based, experimental and socially driven. In the first project that he describes, Vita Vel Regula (Rules of life), Helguera created a game that is to last nearly 100 years. He collected 50 participants who were of various ages younger than him (the purpose being that they would likely outlive him). The first 25 participants were people that were close to him in his personal life and the last 25 would be volunteers. Each participant would be given 16 envelopes labeled with specific opening dates and instructions with the first envelope to be opened on March 1st, 2013 and the last envelope to be opened on November 23rd, 2097. Also included among the envelopes is one that is to be opened in the inevitable event of his passing. Because of its lengthy duration, Helguera identifies this piece as his last work of art, even though he will be continuing to create work after the commencement of this game. 

Helguera makes it clear that even though he is in artist, he sees himself standing on the edges of it. More than any medium or “way of making art” he is deeply interested in people and relationships. He is interested in the narratives we create and contrasting world views. Through his work, Helguera not only wants to understand human connections and relationships and how/why they happen, but he also wants to make them happen on a deeper level. He is fascinated by the idea of a shared experience and how it connects people. He focuses on this idea and similar ones throughout most of his lecture.

It seems that his fascination with people and societal norms may stem from his background as an educator. He seems to have a clear understanding of how people learn and how they develop attachments and his work seems to be asking questions to people to see if he can reveal the same truths to them. A good example of this would be his project, The Seven Bridges of Konigsberg where he generated his own set of tarot cards. As somewhat of a social experiment, he would sit people down and given them their tarot reading with cards that he essentially made up. By telling these people that the card was significant to a particular part of their life, the people made an inevitable attachment to that image.

In the final project that Helguera described, he gave a brief description of the story that inspired it which is called Wakefield by Nathanial Hawthorne. In this project he explored the idea of seeing the world without ourselves in it. He was inspired to create this piece because of the feeling of loss as an artist when he had a child. He assumed that he would not be an artist anymore and that he would be a father instead. By creating this piece, with his daughter in his arms, he explored his own beliefs about the world and its social constructs. He wanted to think about what decisions we make or don’t make in order to stay within the art world or outside of it.

Helguera is a rather unconventional artist and in my opinion, what I would call a hipster artist. I imagine that he wouldn’t like to identify himself as an artist, just a man who is doing what he is called to do. In many ways I don’t think he could be argued with as his work doesn’t fall within the realm that most people identify as art.