Mexican artist Demián Flores presents "America. New Visions from the Old World," a graphic arts exhibition at the Instituto Cultural de México in Madrid. The show features forty works that reinterpret 16th-century engravings by Theodor de Bry, whose images of Indigenous peoples—ranging from idealized noble savages to violent cannibals—shaped European perceptions of the Americas. Flores draws on his earlier series "Collateral Disasters" (2012), inspired by Goya's "The Disasters of War," to critique how colonial visual narratives constructed otherness and justified violence.
This exhibition matters because it challenges enduring colonial frameworks by linking historical representations to contemporary forms of violence in Mexico and other conflict zones. Flores uses a contemporary visual language to question how images of the "New World" were fabricated by an engraver who never visited the Americas, exposing the moral justifications embedded in Western discourse. The show remains relevant as debates continue over decolonizing museum collections and reexamining how art history has perpetuated stereotypes and power imbalances.