MORE ART 2016 Engaging Artists Residency | Workshops on Art + Housing Justice:
Pragmatics vs. Aesthetics in Socially Engaged Art
Led by Pablo Helguera
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
6:30 to 8:30pm
[Image Description: A group of people sit in a “U” shape. Most people direct their attention to the man in the upper lefthand corner who is speaking. In the “U” is a small white cube with an audio recorder on it, recording the conversation. The people sit in white chairs with silver, metal legs on a dark brown wood floor. Backpacks, bags, hats, and other belongings surround the chairs. To the left is a row of windows covered by blinds and in the back is a projection of an image of two hands holding up a piece of paper, which belongs to a notebook.]
Engaging Artists is a residency and professional development program for artists seeking to develop their socially-engaged practice through partnerships with community organizations. In 2016, the cohort was focusing on issues of housing inequality in New York City. Each artist was working as an Artist-in-Residence and volunteer with organizations dedicated to housing advocacy, homeless services, and/or anti-displacement efforts in their respective communities.
Bios
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 Pan-American Unrest (2003-2011), an early example of pedagogically-focused socially engaged art, consisted in a nomadic think-tank, physically crossed the continent by car from Anchorage to Tierra del Fuego. He has exhibited widely internationally. He is the author of several other books including Education for Socially Engaged Art, (2011), a primer for social practice, 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.
More Art is a NYC-based nonprofit that supports collaborations between contemporary artists and underrepresented communities to produce public art projects and educational programs that inspire social justice.