The work of some contemporary artists from Argentina and Ecuador
is, in part, related to the issue of appropriation of indigenous cultures in a
globalised world. Shifting identity constructions and ideological reformulations
of national identities in the sense of mixture and homogeneity in Latin
America provide the frame of reference, within which the works of artists
making appropriations from indigenous cultures has to be analysed. The article
suggests that appropriation is part of a general process of understanding the
Other, and ultimately linked to the construction of new identities; it tries to point
out the differences in artistic approaches to the appropriation of the indigenous,
as well as to the national ideologies of mestizaje and crisol de razas