ART, COMMUNITY, AND ECOLOGY IN THE MYSTICISM OF THE JAGUAR, AT THE MUSEUM OF AMERICA
The Museum of America in Madrid is hosting El sueño del jaguar (The Dream of the Jaguar), an exhibition curated by visual artist Fredi Casco (Asunción, Paraguay, 1967) and photographer Fernando Allen (Asunción, Paraguay, 1957), which brings together artistic, ethnographic, and scientific perspectives on the jaguar and its symbolic and ecological significance.
From a visual arts standpoint, the exhibition showcases an important selection of works by over thirty artists, including Néstor Portillo, Andrea Carema, Apolonio Portillo, Efacio Álvares, Esteban Klassen, Clemente Juliuz, Romi Sánchez, Osvaldo Pitoé, Juan Crespo, Félix Peralta, and Simón Pychangui. A range of artistic and artisanal techniques—drawings, paintings, ceramics, wood carvings, and textiles—mostly created by communities in the Paraguayan Chaco, come together to reaffirm the figure of the jaguar as a key reference in Indigenous life, cosmology, and artistic expression.
This symbolism is reflected in the artworks, emphasizing the importance of the jaguar’s patterns, mystique, and ecological role. The curators themselves contribute with the short film Los dominios del jaguar (The Domains of the Jaguar), created in collaboration with Andrea Gandolfo, which appears alongside Panthera Onca, a visual work by Damián Cabrera, and several empirical and scientific video pieces.
Therefore, El sueño del jaguar stands out as an exhibition that explores the legacy of the species from multiple angles and underscores its material and spiritual significance—both in tradition and in habitat conservation—as a vital factor for the future of these communities and their cultural production.
El sueño del jaguar is on view until September 21 at the Museo de América, Reyes Católicos 6, Madrid (Spain).
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