"For too long Social Practice has been the notoriously flimsy flipside of market-based contemporary art: a world of hand-wringing practitioners easily satisfied with the feeling of 'doing good' in a community, and unaware that their quasi-activist, anti-formalist positions in fact have a long artistic heritage and can be critically dissected using the tools of art and theatre history. Helguera's spunky primer promises to offer a much-needed critical compass for those adrift in the expanded social field." -Claire Bishop, Professor of Contemporary Art and Exhibition History, CUNY, and author of Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship "This is an extremely timely and thoughtful reference book. Drawn from empirical and extensive experience and research, it provides a curriculum and framework for thinking about the complexity of socially engaged practices. Locating the methodologies of this work in between disciplines, Helguera draws on histories of performance, pedagogy, sociology, ethnography, linguistics, community and public practices. Rather than propose a system he exposes the temporalities necessary to make these situations possible and resonant. This is a tool that will allow us to consider the difficulties of making socially engaged art and move closer to finding a language through which we can represent and discuss its impact." -Sally Tallant, Artistic Director, Liverpool Biennial "Helguera has produced a highly readable book that absolutely needs to be in the back pocket of anyone interested in teaching or learning about socially engaged art" -Tom Finkelpearl, Director of the Queens Museum, New York, and author of Dialogues in Public Art

In this provocative new book, Pablo Helguera argues that contemporary art makes us perform self-conscious or instinctive interpretive acts; and that the construction of value in artworks is determined less by the objects themselves than by the nature of our interpretive performances, having a trickle-down effect on practically every aspect of art in society. Based on many years of observations, Art Scenes aims to contribute to the neglected area of the sociology of contemporary art, proposing the inauguration of a field described as "Art World Studies." Pablo Helguera is a visual artist living in New York. He is the Director of Adult and Academic Programs at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He is the author of many books including The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style, What in the World ( A Museum's Subjective Biography) and Education for Socially Engaged Art.

In this unique collection of cartoons, artist Pablo Helguera turns his attention to the classical music world, offering a respite from the formality of concerts and the foibles of performers and audiences alike. Whether you are a specialist or an aficionado, Artunes will bring you great laughs, all while being a loving celebration of classical music. "(...) I think of Helguera as a court jester, holding up a mirror to those self-appointed guardians of classical music, sketching out in humor what we're sometimes afraid to verbalize, while exploding myths and sweeping away fusty traditions (...) while Helguera's "artunes" elicit laughs, they also convince me of the continued resiliency of symphonies and operas, sonatas and songs - and the men and women who create and recreate them." -Tom Huizenga, from the Foreword "You will cry, even howl, with laughter." -Flash Art "Inimitable." -The Art Newspaper, London

In 2006, artist Pablo Helguera drove with a portable schoolhouse from Anchorage, Alaska, to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, exploring the historical ideals of Pan-Americanism. Five years after that journey, this bilingual anthology gathers a group of critical essays and documentary materials of this pedagogical and public art experiment.

In the summer of 2006, artist Pablo Helguera drove from Alaska to Chile as part of an art project entitled The School of Panamerican Unrest. The four-month journey included a wide variety of activities ranging from pedagogical experiments to activist gestures, resulting in collectively written declarations, a video documentary, and multiple other works. Out of its various outcomes, Suite Panamericana remains the most personal account of the artist's journey. This collection of collages made out of images and texts of education manuals and history books oscillates between an image poem and a cryptic travelogue. Helguera regards the suite as "operating with the internal logic similar to a dream sequence with fragmentary, if recurring, questions, affirmations, and obsessions." Pablo Helguera (Mexico City, 1971) is a visual artist living in New York. He is the author of several books including The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style, The Boy Inside the Letter, The Juvenal Players, Theatrum Anatomicum (and other Performance Lectures) What in the World, and Uryonstelaii.

On June 12, 2009, the contemporary art center Grand Arts in Kansas City inaugurated a retrospective of the artist Juvenal Merst. A day after the opening, a public panel discussion was held with the closest acquaintances and scholars of the artist's work. The visitors to this event became unsuspecting witnesses of a unique experiment that blurred the line between real life and theater, using the tools of drama and the conventions of academic presentations to provide a reflection about the art world's current state of mind in its various contradictions, its desires, and its conflicts. This edition includes the original text of the play along with an exhibition essay and audience commentary. "Translating stilted art discourse into theater opens a rich vein of satire that Helguera deftly exploits. ...] Helguera's latest effort pulls back the curtain with a theatrical flourish to reveal our collusion - through vocabulary, sartorial choice, gesticulation or egotistical promotion of our hard-earned roles - with the chain of command." Lyra Kilston, Afterall Magazine " A truly brilliant satire in the maximally ambitious form of a Gesamtkunstwerk incorporating every person and object in the space." David Cateforis, Professor of American, Modern and Contemporary art, University of Kansas "Pablo Helguera is ...] a splendid liar, a first-class storyteller, a curious mind constantly in search of stories, a creator of parallel universes and impossible characters living in credible situations, which invariably probe our certainties, intuition, and knowledge ...] On this peculiar and distorted stage, time, space, myth, emotion, interpretation, and a voracious search for meaning create an intimate (slanted, idiosyncratic, devoted, and corrosive) portrait of that revered and wonderful freak show that we know as the art world." Naief Yehya, from the foreword Pablo Helguera is a visual artist living in New York whose works and performances have been presented in museums and art spaces internationally. He is the author of the books The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style, The Boy Inside the Letter, The Witches of Tepoztln (and Other Unpublished Operas), Artoons, and Theatrum Anatomicum (and Other Performance Lectures).

"Estela y las hojas" (Estela and the Leaves) is a charming story about a toddler who encounters the fall leaves for the first time and starts giving them away to people, helping adults rediscover the beauty of autumn. This full-color, illustrated bilingual book includes English text beneath the Spanish, making it useful in the primary-grade bilingual classroom and helping young readers to develop vocabulary. Originally from Mexico City, Pablo Helguera is a New York-based visual artist and educator, known for his cartoons and his storytelling. "Estela y las Hojas" es una hermosa historia sobre una nina que se encuentra por primera vez con las hojas del otono y comienza a regalarlas a la gente, ayudando asi a los adultos a redescubrir la belleza de la estacion. Este cuento ilustrado y a todo color contiene el texto en ingles debajo del espanol, siendo de gran utilidad para la educacion primaria bilingue y ayudando a los jovenes lectores a desarrollar su vocabulario. Originario de la Ciudad de Mexico, Pablo Helguera es un artista visual y educador radicado en Nueva York y es conocido por sus caricaturas y sus narraciones.

Drawn in the style of cartoons in The New Yorker, Pablo Helguera's Artoons exist in a category of their own -which has earned him the title of "the art world's anthropologist." While providing an insider's perspective on the workings and contradictions of the contemporary art scene, Helguera's Artoons are satirical, critical, sometimes existential, and always entertaining. "Inimitable: the truth and the beauty, the delusions, the vanity and the reality of the art world."The Art Newspaper, London"To be an art world insider, you need to know of Pablo Helguera and understand his well-observed jokes."Sarah Thornton, author of "Seven Days in the Art World" "Pablo Helguera is the art world's Herblock. His work satirizes the hypocrisy in the world of galleries, museums, collectors and artists and always goes straight to where it hurts the most. Fueled by attitude and based on an intimate knowledge of the subjects his cartoons are witty, sharp and above all highly subversive."Jens Hoffmann, curator and director of CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco"Comic relief - finally "Allan McCollum, artist"The foibles, ironies, and occasional stupidity of the art world, captured with clarity and economy."Visual Artists' Newssheet, Ireland>Pablo Helguera is a visual artist living in New York whose works and performances have been presented in museums and art spaces internationally. He is the author of the books The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style, The Boy Inside the Letter, The Witches of Tepoztlan (and Other Unpublished Operas), Artoons 1 and 2, Theatrum Anatomicum (and other performance lectures), What in the World. A museum's subjective biography, among other titles..

"Pablo Helguera is the art world's Herblock. His work satirized the hypocrisy in the world of galleries, museums, collectors and artists and always goes straight to where it hurts the most. Fueled by attitude and based on an intimate knowledge of the subjects his cartoons are witty, sharp and above all highly subversive." Jens Hoffmann, curator and director of CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco "Artoons is the book we've all been missing - an essential read. It is the quintessential art gift - you may begin by offering it to yourself and then to your dearest ones. While it is a deft and witty commentary, it is not simply a book of inside art jokes; it's smart and the drawings and writing are executed with superb style; Artoons highlights Helguera's finest qualities as an artist. I suspect him to be a meticulous observer, who reads and edits the information he collects like a skilled and experienced monteur. ...] Two thumbs up. Way up Georgia Kotretsos, Bootprint Magazine "Pablo Helguera skewers art world species one by one." Artnews "The foibles, ironies, and occasional stupidity of the art world, captured with clarity and economy." Visual Artists' Newssheet, Ireland Volume 1 was published by Jorge Pinto Books in 2009 and is available

"Indiana Jones and Night at the Museum hardly hold a candle to the true stories in Pablo Helguera's museum 'biography.' Helguera is a natural storyteller. He shares the same propensity for insight, wit, and curiosity as the curators he writes about-the anthropologists, archeologists, and native folks who found themselves anchored to a museum, over long careers becoming specimens themselves, no longer completely in sync with the worlds they came from or the foreign worlds they came to know. Mining the history of a museum, Helguera asks questions of these long-gone curators. The answers, embedded in the archives, are as engaging and enjoyable as any exhibition on view." -Fred Wilson, artist An eccentric American professor imports an entire Buddhist temple from Asia. The first Pacific Northwest Indian anthropologist dies mysteriously on a river shore in Alaska. A former Massachusetts farm boy leads the first American archaeological expedition to the Middle East, where he finds thousands of ancient artifacts but loses his mind because of it. A German businessman uncovers ancient clay dinosaur figurines in a small village in Mexico and ignites a decades-long controversy that is still pits scientists against Creationists, today. What in the World tells these stories and more. It is an "unauthorized biography" of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, an illustrious institution that has played a key role in the history of American archaeology. Taking an investigative approach to the life of the University Museum, Pablo Helguera has unearthed little-known or forgotten episodes from its past, spinning intricate threads that reflect on the role of individuals in forming the culture of museums and their collections.

"Helguera knows the lecture form inside out, in all its frailties and anachronisms, and he cares for it. But expect the Professor-Doctor of its terminal condition to be doing stand-up at the funeral." Dominic Willsdon, The Leanne and George Roberts Curator of Education and Public Programs, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art "While Helguera writes in a manner that suggests parody, he is simultaneously deadly serious and entirely accurate... he] routinely appropriates academic language or strategies to create his artworks, which can appear as books, recordings, symposia or even a nomadic museum. With these he astutely observes the politics of culture and its effects on society, what it means to us and how we are taught to appreciate it." Amanda Coulson, Art Review "Pablo Helguera is ...] a splendid liar, a first-class storyteller, a curious mind constantly in search of stories, a creator of parallel universes and impossible characters living in credible situations, which invariably probe our certainties, intuition and knowledge." Naief Yehya, writer and critic Theatrum Anatomicum (and Other Performance Lectures) brings together a number of performance scripts that blend the dramatic elements of theater with the gravity of the academic presentation, and bring into dialogue topics as disparate as the Latin American soap opera, the origins of the Kindergarten, the history of the Shakers, the US/Mexico war and the social dynamics of the art world. In these series of experimental works, the voices of real and fictional characters come together in a critical exploration of history, politics, and art. Pablo Helguera is a visual artist living in New York whose works and performances have been presented in museums and art spaces internationally. He is the author of the books The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style, The Boy Inside the Letter, The Witches of Tepoztlan (and Other Unpublished Operas), and Artoons. These books are published by Jorge Pinto Books Inc.

"An artist, museum educator, and man about town (specifi cally, New York City), Helguera is an amateur anthropologist of the art world. ( . . . ) Helguera's] cartoons really do capture the foibles, ironies, and occasional stupidity of the art world with a clarity and economy that only a simple pen drawing and a short piece of text can achieve. They fi ll an important gap. Cartooning is rarely done in the art world ( . . . ) Maybe the problem isn't the humor, but the truth. It may take years of sleuthing for Helguera, the anthropologist, to fi gure out why this is so. In the meantime, Pablo's Artoons can do the talking for us." -From the foreword by Andrs Sznt ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Praise for The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style: "Who but a genius would come up with a Manual of Contemporary Art Style?" -The Guardian ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "You will sob, even howl, with laughter." -Flash Art ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "The balancing act between fl ippancy and gravity is neither easy to achieve nor to sustain, yet Helguera manages it with ease." -Art Review +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Pablo Helguera is a visual artist. Some of his past art projects have included making a phonographic archive of dying languages, creating scripted symposia performed by actors (unbeknownst to the audience), building a memory theater, and founding a research institute exploring the global impact of Latin American soap operas. He is the author of � ve books, including The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style (2007) and the novel The Boy Inside the Letter (2008), published by Jorge Pinto Books. In 2006 he drove from Anchorage to Tierradel Fuego with a collapsible schoolhouse, organizing discussions and civic ceremonies (The School of Panamerican Unrest). In 2008 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship.

THE WITCHES OF TEPOZTLAN (AND OTHER UNPUBLISHED OPERAS) describes the cases of four different and rather obscure operas written by equally obscure composers whose existence, whether fictitious or real, is never confirmed by the author. By intertwining these four stories in the form of a narrative fugue, this book invites the reader to reflect on the conception of a masterpiece, the role that biography plays in turning an author into an antihero or a mythical figure, and the relationship between a work, its author, and its interpreters. PABLO HELGUERA (Mexico City, 1971) is a visual artist. His work, which includes writing and performance, ranges from making phonographic recordings of dying languages to driving across the American continent (The School of Panamerican Unrest). He is the author of The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style (2005), an etiquette manual for the art world, and the novel The Boy Inside the Letter (2008).

"Adolescence prepares us for adulthood, but nothing truly prepares us for adolescence," says the protagonist of The Boy Inside the Letter. This autobiographical work written in the style of a Knstlerroman -a novel of artistic education- provides a rare glimpse into the mind of a XXIst century artist during his art school years. The novel departs from the author's actual personal diaries written at the time when he was 17 to 21 years old, serving as a day-by-day account of the most important transition of his life, relocating from one country to another, growing from adolescence into adulthood, and looking for the ideal love, while at the same time attempting to navigate the difficult road toward becoming a contemporary artist. In this narration outlining a multiple journey that includes Mexico City, Chicago, and Barcelona, we join the frustrations and desires of a young artist who eagerly awaits to find his ideal interlocutor, his artistic voice, and to make sense of the vast and daunting world plagued by the devils of adolescence, wishing for a better time, hoping, like any other young person, to find someone to understand his ordeal. +++++++++++ Pablo Helguera is a visual artist living in New York whose works and performances have been presented in museums and art spaces internationally. He is the author of many performance text and plays, as well of the books Endingness, The Witches of Tepoztln (and Other Unpublished Operas), and The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style. +++++++++ Praise for The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style: "Pablo Helguera has written the book we have all been waiting for." -Art Metropole "You will sob, even howl, with laughter." -FlashArt "The balancing act between flippancy and gravity is neither easy to achieve nor to sustain, yet Helguera manages it with ease." -Art Review

Youll find all sorts of things in Helgueras Manual that arent in any other book: the difference between an A-level artist and a B-level artist, how to cure the dreaded festivalist syndrome, how to keep your conviction that youre the greatest artist in history, and whether it is ethical for a critic to sleep with an artist whose work she doesnt like. This is a very funny book. It masquerades as an old-fashioned guide to the manners and foibles of the art world, written by a savvy twenty-first century artist. But it is clever, and has many voices: snide like Miss Manners, sweet and impeccable like Emily Post, hapless like Bouvard and Pcuchet, earnest like an Art World for Dummies, sharp like Swifts encyclopedia of clichs, sneaky like David Wilsons fabricated documents for the Museum of Jurassic Technology. Helgueras tongue seems to be in his cheekthats what youre meant to thinkbut he is often very helpful, and everything he says is true. --James Elkins, author of How to Use your Eyes and Our Beautiful, Dry and Distant Texts: Art History as Writing. In the process of writing the rules of the game, Helguera also skewers its participants. --Rebeca Spence, ArtNews An artist who dares to look at the big picture ... Helguera has a savvy understanding of art history and art audiences, enough to know that a little humor and a bit of irony are sometimes the best tools in an artist arsenal. --Barbara Pollack, artist and writer

"Onda corta, la delirante obra, de prosa exigente y magn tica, de Pablo Helguera, un performance literario propio de tales formas de hablar -a la vez insomnes, impredecibles y enteramente dedicadas a la exaltaci n idiosincr tica de sujetos desenfrenados y expuestos ...] Onda corta crea ensamblajes improbables en escenas de transmutaciones materiales y metaf ricas. La posibilidad de cualquier representaci n estable se esfuma debido a un grupo de sujetos, animados e inanimados, dedicados al gesto calculado o accidental." Roberto Tejada, del pr logo Veo tres lunas y dos soles, veo a Pablo Helguera so ando el vibro temblante de la frecuencia viva, sinton a de la luz en el polvo. Veo el espejo del silencio, el infinito en un cuadrito. El es no es de la historia, porque el "apag n puede radicar en el cerebro de uno." Veo al ni o imaginando las ondas que cruzan el espacio "para entrar dentro de la radio iluminada." Lo veo esperando que "el afilador camine por una cuerda floja desde Tlalnepantla hasta Brooklyn." "Mira," dice, "este bodeg n hecho de interludios" mientras la radio transmite las ltimas palabras de Lao Ts " y "algo se escucha desde lejos sugiriendo una transmisi n de la verdad de las cosas por cortes a de un pa s probablemente inexistente." Que viva el misterio de la Onda Corta en el prodigioso compendio de "memorias adquiridas antes de nacer" de Pablo Helguera. Cecilia Vicu a

Las Aventuras de Olmeco Beuys es un comic que se remonta a la era precolombina, tomando como protagonista un artista olmeca incomprendido. Autor de cabezas colosales, Olmeco Beuys vive en la eterna pero futil bsqueda de reconocimento, becas y exposiciones mientras que es ignorado por su entorno social de galeristas, curadores, artistas y coleccionistas. Este nuevo libro de Pablo Helguera, conocido por sus stiras alrededor del mundo del arte contemporneo, realiza de nuevo un anlisis agudo e irnico de sus dinmicas sociales desde el absurdo de una poca remota cuyos personajes sin embargo viven nuestros propios dilemas, dramas y conflictos. "Llorars, incluso aullars, de risa." - Flash Art "Acido abscrbico en su estado ms puro." -Felipe Ehrenberg, artista "Helguera rostiza a las especies del mundo del arte, una a una." -Artnews Pablo Helguera is a visual artist living in New York whose works and performances have been presented in museums and art spaces internationally. He is the author of the books The Pablo Helguera Manual of Contemporary Art Style, The Boy Inside the Letter, The Witches of Tepoztln (and Other Unpublished Operas), Artoons, and Theatrum Anatomicum (and Other Performance Lectures) and his most recent work What in the World.

Un dandy italiano irascible lanza su piano desde su balcn. Un pintor novohispano bebe un elxir que le permite ver el futuro. Una famosa videoasta siria desaparece sbitamente por las calles de Jerusaln. En 1977 un cura en Sevilla descubre, debajo de un armario, un manuscrito que resulta ser la primera pera escrita en las Amricas. Un compositor negro norteamericano escribe una obra en los aos cincuenta que presagia la decadencia del imperio norteamericano. Siguiendo el dictado de Hermes Trismegisto, Giordano Bruno escribe su obra maestra sabiendo que sta lo conducir a la hoguera. La vida de un soldado israel termina en las manos de una nia palestina. Una mujer de la aristocracia de la nueva inglaterra decide morir enterrada en vida antes de descender de clase. Las Brujas de Tepoztln (y otras peras inditas) presenta los casos de cuatro peras dismiles y oscuras, escritas por compositores igualmente oscuros cuya ficcin o realidad nunca es completamente confirmada por el autor. Al entrelazar estas cuatro historias a manera de una fuga narrativa, este libro invita al lector a reflexionar acerca de la gestacin de la "obra maestra," la mitificacin de la figura del artista antihroe, y la relacin entre una obra, su autor y sus intrpretes. Pablo Helguera (ciudad de Mxico, 1971) es un artista visual. Su obra, que incorpora escritura y performance, vara desde hacer registros fonogrficos de lenguas en vas de extincin hasta cruzar manejando por el continente americano en bsqueda del panamericanismo. Es autor del ensayo Endingness (2005) y del Manual de Estilo del Arte Contemporneo (2005), un libro de etiqueta social para el mundo del arte.