Through the figure of the animal, this research text points a comparative reading of different manifestations of a modern indigenism at play in contemporary art. A critical approach to the artistic and political operation found in the art work I Like America and America Likes Me by Joseph Beuys allows us to study the complexity of other artistic productions that reference this work which, in turn, allows us to understand the way in which indigenism is
incorporated into the work of those artists who wish to justify a certain position when confronted with a system of identity that seeks to reestablish a colonial ideology in the art world.