Wide-ranging in its scholarly scope, “El Dorado: Myths of Gold” Part II was an ambitious attempt to explore this foundational legend and its profound and enduring impact on the Americas. The show was first conceptualized in 2020, when the Americas Society, Fundación Proa in Buenos Aires, and the Museo Amparo in Puebla, Mexico, joined efforts and convened a number of online information sessions that resulted in a series of exhibitions at each institution dealing with the theme. Featuring works by more than sixty artists, from the pre-Hispanic period to the contemporary era, the presentation here was divided into two iterations (the first took place in 2023).
The tale of El Dorado, a hidden kingdom of gold, not only spurred greedy European colonialist expansion that destroyed ancestral territories, endangered Indigenous lives, and wreaked environmental havoc, but also was largely responsible for the powerfully destructive materialist ethos that to this day continues to destabilize social, economic, and political structures in Latin America. One of the great strengths of this exhibition—curated by Tie Jojima, Aimé Iglesias Lukin, and Edward J. Sullivan—was that it brought examples of precolonial goldwork and colonial altarpieces, along with contemporary photography, sculpture, painting, video, and more, into a seamless installation that facilitated dialogues between historical time periods and locations.
These uneasy proximities served to reveal and complicate the im.