New York-based, Mexican artist Pablo Helguera presents artworks inspired by childhood for his first solo exhibition in Houston. Through stories, fables, educational and museum environments, and other playful scenarios, the artist invites us to reflect upon childhood as a metaphor, in ways that range from poetic (as a reverie about lost innocence) to political (as the way we experience power relationships).
His exhibition at DiverseWorks includes collage, video, sound, and installation work, including a mini-museum of school life and an interactive optical illusion room. The centerpiece of the exhibition, Pedro and the Wolf Captain, is a trapezoidal room based on an invention by American ophthalmologist Adelbert Ames, Jr. in 1934. The room creates an optical illusion that is activated by two or more participants and visible through a camera lens or peephole. An accompanying video documents a short play performed by Helguera and Houston actor and director, Tim Fried-Fiori. Helguera's script...is a hybrid of a play by Uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti, Pedro y el capitán, about the power relationships between a military official and a captured student activist during the Argentinian military dictatorship in 1976, and Peter and the Wolf, composed by Sergei Prokofiev in 1936. Gallery visitors to the exhibition are provided with Helguera's script and are invited to perform their own version of the play in the Ames room.
Through this and other conceptual artworks, Helguera invites visitors to consider the dynamics at play between those in a position to teach (adults, parents, teachers, curators, etc.) and those looking to others for learning and access (children, students, museum visitors, etc.). The exhibition at DiverseWorks continues Helguera's unique investigations into the social structures and ideologies at play in both classrooms and museums.
Pablo Helguera (b. 1971, Mexico City) combines performance, visual art, community outreach, and political activism to examine the social and cultural function of teaching and memory systems. He has exhibited and performed internationally in many museums and biennials (most recently at the 2016 Manifesta and Site Santa Fe biennials) and is currently the Director of Adult and Academic Programs in the Education Department at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Entrada actualizada el el 20 oct de 2016
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