THE NEW SCHOOL’S VERA LIST CENTER FOR ART AND POLITICS
ANNOUNCES NEW DIRECTOR, PABLO HELGUERA

Helguera Succeeds Carin Kuoni, Whose More Than Two Decades of Leadership Built the VLC into an International Platform for Art, Research, and Public Dialogue

Helguera Also To Serve As New Director of The New School Art Collection

(New York, NY – November 3, 2026) The Vera List Center for Art and Politics (VLC) at The New School is pleased to announce the appointment of Pablo Helguera as its next Director, as well as the Director of the New School’s Art Collection effective November 2, 2026. An artist, educator, curator, and author, Helguera joins the VLC from The New School’s College of Performing Arts, where he has served on the faculty since 2020, following thirteen years as Director of Adult and Academic Programs at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He succeeds Carin Kuoni, Senior Director and Chief Curator, who has led the VLC since 2004.

The appointment carries the VLC’s work forward with continuity. Helguera arrives as a colleague already engaged with The New School’s students, faculty, and programs, and brings a career devoted to the questions at the heart of the VLC: how art shapes public life, and how education and artistic practice serve the public good. The Vera List Center for Art and Politics enters this next chapter with a strong financial and organizational foundation, an international network of partners, and a distinctive program built over more than thirty years, at a moment of profound change across the fields of philanthropy and politically engaged art. The VLC’s commitment to artists, research, and free public programs continues with renewed energy, with work already in motion including the center’s 2025–2027 Focus Theme, Matter of Intelligence, and the 2025–2027 VLC Fellowship projects by Moriah Evans, Mashinka Hakopian, Joyce Joumaa, and Kira Xonorika. The Vera List Center’s Curator and Programs Director, Eriola Pira, will continue to guide Matter of Intelligence through 2027, having spearheaded the initiative alongside Kuoni.

“Pablo Helguera brings an extraordinary combination of artistic vision, intellectual curiosity, and institutional experience to the Vera List Center for Art and Politics,” said JK Brown, Chair of the Vera List Center Advisory Board. “His commitment to socially engaged art and the role of artists in shaping public life aligns deeply with the VLC’s mission. As we welcome Pablo, we also celebrate Carin Kuoni’s remarkable leadership over the past two decades. She has built an institution of international significance, grounded in rigorous inquiry, artistic experimentation, and a profound commitment to social justice. We are excited for Pablo to build on this extraordinary legacy and lead the VLC into its next chapter.”

“I am thrilled and honored to take on the leadership of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics and to build upon its remarkable legacy of fostering critical dialogue at the intersection of art and politics, both in New York and internationally,” states Director of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics and The New School Art Collection, Pablo Helguera. “Having been a member of The New School faculty for the past six years, I am particularly excited by the opportunity to bring my experience as an artist, curator, and public programmer to this new role. We are living through a moment of profound political and cultural transformation, when the need to make sense of rapidly unfolding events, question prevailing narratives, and imagine alternative futures has become especially urgent. I believe artistic practice has a vital role to play in this process, not only by responding to the issues of our time, but by creating new spaces for inquiry, exchange, and collective reflection. I look forward to working with the extraordinary team at the Vera List Center to develop conversations, exhibitions, publications, and other initiatives that can help us navigate the complexities of this pivotal moment.”

Helguera’s work as an artist and educator centers on socially engaged practice. He conceived and directed The School of Panamerican Unrest, a project of more than one hundred public programs across twenty-five cities in twenty countries of the Americas, and founded Librería Donceles, a Spanish-language used bookstore of 25,000 titles that has traveled to thirteen cities. His books include Education for Socially Engaged Art: A Materials and Techniques Handbook (2011) and Art Scenes: The Social Scripts of the Art World (2012). He has curated Club Americano at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2017), served as Pedagogical Curator of the 8th Mercosul Biennial, and contributed as Cultural Mediator to Manifesta 15 Barcelona (2024). A mid-career retrospective, Pablo Helguera: Socialscapes, is scheduled for 2027 at the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln, Nebraska.

At the Museum of Modern Art, Helguera developed and directed theoretical symposia including the annual Contemporary Art Forum, conceived the Artists Experiment initiative, and oversaw interactive education spaces including The Paula and James Crown Platform at MoMA. His earlier roles at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, shaped public programs for audiences in New York, Venice, Bilbao, and Berlin. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Creative Capital grant, and fellowships and awards from Blade of Grass, Franklin Furnace, and Art Matters, among others, as well as an honorary doctorate from the Kansas City Art Institute and an honorary fellowship from Plymouth College of Art.

Founded in 1992 at The New School through the vision of life trustee Vera G. List, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics has advanced freedom of expression, cultural dialogue, and public support for the arts for more than three decades. Under Carin Kuoni, who joined as Director in 2004 after leading the Swiss Institute New York and serving as Director of Exhibitions at Independent Curators International, the VLC grew from a small university-based initiative into an internationally recognized platform. Its annual operating budget rose from approximately $80,000 to $1.1 million; its endowment increased by $5.25 million, including a recent major grant from the Mellon Foundation that partially endows the director position and supports the center’s activities for the next two years. Its staff expanded from 0.5 to 4.5 full-time equivalent positions, supported by a diversified base of foundation and individual philanthropy that includes the Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and The Andy Warhol Foundation.

Kuoni’s programmatic vision shaped the VLCr’s intellectual life. She introduced the biennial Focus Themes that frame the center’s research, teaching, exhibitions, publications, and public programs; the Vera List Center Seminars, a free, open-campus educational initiative; and the annual Vera List Center Forum, the VLC’s signature public convening. She expanded the Vera List Center Fellowship, established the principle in 2010 that all Vera List Center programs are free and fully accessible, and built a publishing program in partnership with Duke University Press, Inventory Press, OR Books, and Amherst College Press. In 2012, on the occasion of the VLC’s 20th anniversary, she conceived the biennial, international Jane Lombard Prize for Art and Social Justice, and in 2016 she launched Indigenous New York, an eighteen-month initiative that brought visibility and institutional support to the city’s Indigenous arts community. Her leadership also established long lasting partnerships with the Bronx Museum of the Arts, El Museo del Barrio, Queens Museum, The Clemente, Weeksville Heritage Center, BAK in Utrecht, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, and sustained the VLC’s W.A.G.E. certification since 2018.

“At this moment of seismic political change in the world, I cannot think of an arts organization that is more necessary than the Vera List Center for Art and Politics,” says Kuoni. “It is thrilling to know that the VLC, with its formidable team and board, will reach new levels of depth and impact under the leadership of artist and educator Pablo Helguera, whose artistic practice, ethical commitment, and international perspective I have long admired.”

Kuoni steps down following the Vera List Center Forum 2026: Matter of Intelligence (October 9 and 10) and the Jane Lombard Prize exhibition Rosana Paulino: ¿História Natural? (October 9–November 1, 2026). Her work has given the VLC a durable infrastructure for artists and intellectuals working at the intersection of art, politics, and social justice, and Helguera inherits an institution ready for its next era.

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About Pablo Helguera
Pablo Helguera is an artist, educator, and author based in New York. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from Kingston University, UK (2013), and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1993). Since 2020 he has served as Assistant Professor of Arts Management and Entrepreneurship in The New School’s College of Performing Arts, where he oversees the Master’s program in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship. From 2007 to 2020 he was Director of Adult and Academic Programs in the Department of Education at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

About the Vera List Center for Art and Politics
The Vera List Center for Art and Politics is an artist-focused research center and public forum for art, culture, and politics. It was established at The New School in 1992, a time of rousing debates about freedom of speech, identity politics, and society’s investment in the arts. A leader in the field, the center is a nonprofit that catalyzes and supports politically engaged art, public scholarship, and research worldwide. We champion the arts as expressions of the political moments from which they emerge, and consider the intersection between art and politics the space where new forms of civic engagement must be developed. Through public programs and the Vera List Center Seminars, the Jane Lombard Prize and artist and student fellowships, and publications and exhibitions that probe some of the pressing issues of our time, we curate and support new roles for the arts and artists in advancing social justice. www.veralistcenter.org

For additional information, contact vlc@newschool.edu.
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