Mexican-born, New York-based artist and educator Pablo Helguera has organized hundreds of events as MoMA’s director of adult and academic programs and dozens of his own art projects—like a “nomadic think tank” that had him traveling from one tip of the continent to the other. His next happening requires less mileage: Helguera is inviting Museum of Fine Arts visitors to Club Americano, a one-room exhibition that reframes pieces from the MFA’s collection to explore how we define American identity. It’s on view April 22-June 4, but he gave us a preview.
What’s the thinking behind the name? We called it Club Americano because we are responding to the rich history of Boston as a higher education center, specifically to the kinds of social spaces connected to the universities—the university club. University clubs are very exclusive spaces that are membership-only; only certain people can come in. … I wanted to make reference to the idea of learning of the university club, but make it a university of the people. It’s a place for everyone.
What will the vibe be like? The space is going to feel very different from a traditional gallery. It will feel more like a social space with couches and chairs and tables. What you will see inside this space is many objects from the collection that speak to subjects I feel are relevant at this moment and deserve discussion. And we will be addressing these topics by creating social events inspired by this old social convention, the after-dinner lectures, where a society would do a fancy dinner and then have an important figure like Mark Twain or a congressman give a speech about something like the value of education. So we will have different types of experts, writers, poets and artists give a speech about a subject familiar to them.
Can you tell us about a work that will be on display? We’re going to be showing the works of an important American photographer, Wallace Nutting. He was a minister who took up photography as a hobby and around the turn of the century started taking photographs of New England. They became very, very popular. He started making prints of bucolic American landscapes and nostalgic photographs of old American villages. What’s interesting is Nutting was working at a time when the U.S. was beginning to recognize its own history, because the U.S. was a very young country. So Nutting is credited with creating the idea of Americana. He kind of became the Martha Stewart of the time. He started a line of furniture, a line of rustic colonial objects, and his tinted photographs sold by the millions. He’s likely the most sold American artist in the history of this country, and ironically very few people know who he was.
THE IMPROPER’S 2016 FALL ARTS PREVIEW: COMEDY | THEATER | MUSIC | DANCE | FILM
Eye-Catching Exhibits
Your Spring '17 Art Preview
By Jacqueline Houton March 10, 2017
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Mexican-born, New York-based artist and educator Pablo Helguera has organized hundreds of events as MoMA’s director of adult and academic programs and dozens of his own art projects—like a “nomadic think tank” that had him traveling from one tip of the continent to the other. His next happening requires less mileage: Helguera is inviting Museum of Fine Arts visitors to Club Americano, a one-room exhibition that reframes pieces from the MFA’s collection to explore how we define American identity. It’s on view April 22-June 4, but he gave us a preview.
What’s the thinking behind the name? We called it Club Americano because we are responding to the rich history of Boston as a higher education center, specifically to the kinds of social spaces connected to the universities—the university club. University clubs are very exclusive spaces that are membership-only; only certain people can come in. … I wanted to make reference to the idea of learning of the university club, but make it a university of the people. It’s a place for everyone.
What will the vibe be like? The space is going to feel very different from a traditional gallery. It will feel more like a social space with couches and chairs and tables. What you will see inside this space is many objects from the collection that speak to subjects I feel are relevant at this moment and deserve discussion. And we will be addressing these topics by creating social events inspired by this old social convention, the after-dinner lectures, where a society would do a fancy dinner and then have an important figure like Mark Twain or a congressman give a speech about something like the value of education. So we will have different types of experts, writers, poets and artists give a speech about a subject familiar to them.
Can you tell us about a work that will be on display? We’re going to be showing the works of an important American photographer, Wallace Nutting. He was a minister who took up photography as a hobby and around the turn of the century started taking photographs of New England. They became very, very popular. He started making prints of bucolic American landscapes and nostalgic photographs of old American villages. What’s interesting is Nutting was working at a time when the U.S. was beginning to recognize its own history, because the U.S. was a very young country. So Nutting is credited with creating the idea of Americana. He kind of became the Martha Stewart of the time. He started a line of furniture, a line of rustic colonial objects, and his tinted photographs sold by the millions. He’s likely the most sold American artist in the history of this country, and ironically very few people know who he was.
THE IMPROPER’S 2016 FALL ARTS PREVIEW: COMEDY | THEATER | MUSIC | DANCE | FILM
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