Panel Discussion—Instituto de la telenovela: Entre la gloria y el olvido

Art at Americas Society is pleased to present a panel discussion on Instituto de la telenovela: Entre la gloria y el olvido (Institute of the telenovela: Between glory and oblivion), a project by Pablo Helguera commissioned by Americas Society for the Telenovela exhibition. Moderated by Tatiana Marcel, associate curator of art at Americas Society, the conversation will feature the artist alongside Julieta González, head of exhibitions at the Wexner Center for the Arts, and Ana Janevski, curator in the Department of Media and Performance at the Museum of Modern Art.

Wednesday, October 14, 6-8 PM
680 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065
Registration is required
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Presented in conjunction with Telenovela, this program centers on Pablo Helguera’s Instituto de la telenovela (2007–present), a long-term project that serves as a cornerstone for the exhibition’s exploration of telenovelas as a cultural, social, and artistic phenomenon.

The program's recording will be available on our website and on the Art at Americas Society YouTube channel.

About the Artwork:

Instituto de la telenovela: Entre la gloria y el olvido (Institute of the telenovela: Between glory and oblivion) follows the story of two art students, Aquiles Albarrán and Mónica Parra, who meet while working on the assembly team of an art fair and develop a romantic relationship. Aquiles encounters an influential American curator, Sylvia Sundquist, who includes him in the Whitney Biennial, propelling his career into critical and commercial success. As Aquiles's relationship with Sylvia deepens, he leaves Mónica and moves to New York. Mónica decides to follow him but struggles to gain recognition. However, her career takes an unexpected turn as she rises to prominence, while Sylvia Sundquist is fired for misconduct, becoming a pariah in the art world. Aquiles ends his relationship with Sylvia, but his own career begins to falter. Years later, Aquiles and Mónica meet again—she is now a successful artist, while he has become a has-been—and they must ask whether they can rekindle their relationship after their reversal of fortunes.

Through a participatory production process, different scenes of the same narrative will be interpreted with collaborators in the four locales using iconic visual elements, local references, and idiomatic gestures that are representative of the culture of that particular city. The overarching plotline about the contemporary art scene’s social dynamics will be inflected by local stories, rooting the narrative in the community’s lived experience and foregrounding melodrama’s function as a mirror for collective identity and meditation on human relationships. As such, Helguera highlights telenovelas’ status as an ethnographic and sociological tool—a way to map out structural issues like class, gender, and migration as well as the everyday anxieties, aspirations, and conflicts that often go undocumented in conventional media.

The project examines the cultural impact of Latin American telenovelas from a Pan-American perspective through an audiovisual installation comprised of multiple screens amid elements of a telenovela set, each projecting video of a scene written and directed by Helguera, filmed with local actors in different Latin American cities (Mexico City, Bogotá, São Paulo, and Buenos Aires), and representing a parallel reality shaped by its unique context.

Panelist Bios

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Julieta González joined the Wexner Center for the Arts in 2024 as the head of visual arts. In her role, González works closely with Executive Director Gaëtane Verna, the curatorial and exhibitions team, and peers in the Departments of Performing Arts, Film, Learning and Public Programs, Advancement, and Marketing and Communications. González conceptualizes and enacts a robust exhibition calendar; engages with audiences; manages visual arts residencies; and nurtures collaborations across The Ohio State University, in surrounding communities, and within the international art world. A curator and museum professional, González brings three decades of experience to her role. She has organized or co-organized over 80 exhibitions, has edited or coedited several books, and has published numerous essays in catalogues and periodicals including Flash Art and Parkett. González was invited by Adriano Pedrosa to co-curate the 2026 exhibition Histórias latino-americanas at Museu de Arte de São Paolo, Brazil, where González has served as curator-at-large for modern and contemporary art. Previously, González served as the artistic director at the Instituto Inhotim, Brazil; as artistic director and chief curator at Museo Jumex, Mexico City; and as senior curator at Museo Tamayo, Mexico City. She has also held curatorial roles at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; at Tate Modern, London; and at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas, Venezuela. González holds an MA in cultural studies from Goldsmiths, University of London; was a Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art; and previously studied architecture at Universidad Simón Bolívar, Caracas, and at Ecole d’Architecture Paris-Villemin, Paris.

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Ana Janevski is a curator in the Department of Media and Performance. She has organized more than 30 performances by artists including Yvonne Rainer, Simone Forti, Trajal Harrell, Boris Charmatz, Jérôme Bel, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, and Rabih Mroué, among others. She has been involved in the programming of MoMA’s Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Studio, where she curated Nora Turato: pool 5 (2022), Studio Residency: Okwui Okpokwasili (2022), David Tudor and Composers Inside Electronics Inc.: Rainforest V (variation 1) (2019), and Sung Hwan Kim: Temper Clay (2021, with Martha Joseph). She is currently preparing a retrospective of Joan Jonas (2024). Her collaboratively organized exhibitions at MoMA include Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done (2018), with Thomas (T.) Jean Lax and Martha Joseph; Scenes for a New Heritage: Contemporary Art from the Collection (2016), with Eva Respini and Sarah Suzuki; and Projects 100: Akram Zaatari (2103), with Eva Respini. From 2007 to 2011, she held the position of curator at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, where she curated, among many other projects, the large-scale exhibition and accompanying publication As Soon As I Open My Eyes I See a Film, which focused on Yugoslav experimental film and art from the 1960s and 1970s (2011). She regularly contributes to and co-edits publications on performance, the body, and the history of art in Eastern Europe. She received her MPhil at L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris and her MA at Sorbonne Nouvelle University Paris 3.

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Pablo Helguera is a New York based artist working with installation, sculpture, photography, drawing, socially engaged art and performance. Helguera’s work focuses in a variety of topics ranging from history, pedagogy, sociolinguistics, ethnography, memory and the absurd, in formats that are widely varied including the lecture, museum display strategies, musical performances and written fiction.

His work as an educator has usually intersected his interest as an artist. This intersection is best exemplified in his project, “The School of Panamerican Unrest,” a nomadic think-tank that physically crossed the continent by car from Anchorage, Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, making 40 stops in between. Covering almost 20,000 miles, it is considered one of the most extensive public art projects on record as well as a pioneering work for the new generation of artworks regarded under the area of socially engaged art. His musical composition, “Endingness” has been performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Helguera has exhibited or performed at venues such as the Museo de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; MoMA, ICA Boston; 8th and 11th Havana Biennal, PERFORMA, Manifesta, Zurich, Fundación Proa in Buenos Aires and many others. He is a Guggenheim fellow and recipient of the Creative Capital, Art Matters, and Franklin Furnace Grants. In 2011 he was named winner of the International Award of Participatory Art of the Region Emilia-Romagna in Italy. He has also received the Franklin Furnace and Art Matters grants. 2026 exhibitions include the Centro de Cultura Contemporánea in Valencia, the MCA Chicago, and the Americas Society, among others.

Helguera has worked since 1991 in a variety of contemporary art museums, including as head of public programs at the Education department of the Guggenheim Museum in New York (1998-2005) and from 2007 to 2020, director of adult and academic programs at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has organized close to 1000 public events in conjunction with nearly 100 exhibitions. In 2010, he was appointed pedagogical curator of the 8th Mercosul Biennial in Porto Alegre, Brazil, which took place in September, 2011. He is currently assistant professor of arts and entrepreneurship at the College of Performing Arts at the New School in New York. He is the author of many books, including Education for Socially Engaged Art (2011), The Parable Conference (2014) and A Journal of the Year of the Pharmacy (2021). He writes a weekly column titled Beautiful Eccentrics.