Indigenous Cosmopolitics in Contemporary Art: Ontological Tensions, Regimes of Visibility and the Destabilization of the Artistic Field

Abstract

This article analyzes contemporary Indigenous art as a cosmopolitical force that tensions curatorial devices and hegemonic regimes of visibility. A qualitative, critical, and documentary approach examines an empirical corpus with paradigmatic cases, such as the presence of the MAHKU collective at Documenta Fifteen and works by artists like Denilson Baniwa and Daiara Tukano, articulating decolonial and Indigenous theoretical perspectives. The results demonstrate that these artistic practices operate an ontological rupture, destabilizing modern categories of artwork, authorship, and archive by reinscribing art as an extension of territorial struggle and living memory. It concludes that Indigenous aesthetic insurgency confronts the coloniality of cultural institutions and projects futures that reconfigure the very concept of art in the present.