Pablo Helguera is a Mexican artist based in Brooklyn working with projects that range from drawing to socially engaged art. He has received the Guggenheim and Creative Capital Fellowships as well as the First International Award of Participatory Art of the Emilia Romagna region (Bologna). He is the author of several books including The Parable Conference (2014) and Education for Socially Engaged Art (2011).
In the early days of the COVD-19 pandemic, we re-introduced Creative Time Comics as a digital platform to forefront artist’s responses to the global shifts - be they mental, political, health, or economic - happening around us. As we shared the comics on our social media platform, we realized that they are an incredible and practical device to make sense and reflect on the ever-changing world, beyond the pandemic. We are pleased to continue sharing Creative Time Comics as periodically as a means for communicating complex ideas about society and honoring the medium’s long history of expressing the zeitgeist in times of war, distress, and upheaval.
Creative Time Comics also affirms the vital importance of artists’ voices in shaping contemporary discourse, while exploring the digital realm as an expansive and dynamic public space. The resulting works are released on Creative Time’s Instagram account and featured on our website and other social media platforms.
Creative Time Comics 2020 references our long history of interpreting digital platforms as forms of public space, and calling on artists to provide critical perspectives on current events. From the first iteration of Creative Time Comics in 2010, to our global initiative Creative Time Reports, we have long championed work that can circulate widely without physical proximity, and that transforms individual viewership into collective experience.