Luis María Escobar Argaña (born February 9, 1947), better known as Ticio Escobar, is a

Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...

an lawyer, academic, author, museum director, and former Minister of Culture of Paraguay. He has championed the rights of Indigenous peoples of Paraguay, writing about and curating shows on the topic.

Early life and education

Escobar was born on February 9, 1947, in

Asunción Asunción (, ) is the capital and the largest city of Paraguay. The city stands on the eastern bank of the Paraguay River, almost at the confluence of this river with the Pilcomayo River. The Paraguay River and the Bay of Asunción in the north ...

. His father was jurist Jorge H. Escobar, and his mother is María Rosalba Argaña Ferraro. He graduated in law at the Universidad Católica Nuestra Señora de la Asunción in 1970. Five years later, in 1974, he obtained his

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

(''licencia'') here in

Philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. During his study, he was a member of the Comisión de Defensa de los Derechos Humanos en el Paraguay, a

human rights Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...

group.Prince Claus Fund
biography
Prince Claus Fund

/ref>

Career

Escobar is also a curator, professor, cultural critic, and cultural promoter. He is the founder of the Museo de Arte Indígena of Paraguay and has served as president of the Asociación de Apoyo a las Comunidades Indígenas del Paraguay and the Paraguayan section of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). He was Director of Culture of Asunción and served as Paraguay's Minister of Culture from 2008 to 2013. He was the principal author of the National Culture Law of Paraguay and co-author of the National Heritage Law. Escobar has written extensively on art theory and cultural studies, including his recent publication Aura Latente (Tinta Limón, 2021). Throughout his career, he has received numerous international awards and honors, including decorations from Argentina, Brazil, and France. In 2021, he was awarded an honorary doctorate (Doctorado Honoris Causa) by the Universidad Nacional de Rosario. In Spain, he received the Bartolomé de las Casas Award for his support of Indigenous causes in the Americas. He is currently the director of the Centro de Artes Visuales/Museo del Barro in Asunción.

Academic career

Between 1971 and 1989, Escobar was a university professor in the fields of

philosophy of law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of Logic#Formal logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory (also known as computability theory). Research in mathematical logic com ...

philosophical anthropology Philosophical anthropology, sometimes called anthropological philosophy, is a discipline within philosophy that inquires into the essence of human nature. It deals with questions of metaphysics and phenomenology of the human person. Philosophic ...

history of art The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetics ...

and

art criticism Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art. Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty. A goal of art criticism is the pursuit of a rational basis for art appreciation but it is quest ...

.A Quienes Elegimos
Curriculum Vitae
Until 1980, he was an art reviewer for the Museo Paraguayo de Arte Contemporáneo. In 1979 he founded the Museo del Barro (museum of pottery) in Asunción, with the objective to preserve Paraguayan culture. The same year he also founded the Museo de Arte Indígena, Centro de Artes Visuales (museum for indigenous art, center of visual art). To this museum, of which he was also the director until 2008, he donated his own art collection.

Arts and activism

Between 1978 and 1988, Escobar was the curator for Paraguay at the Biennale of

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

. Furthermore, he was curator for several versions of the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

and the biennales of Cuenca, Trujillo,

San Juan San Juan, Spanish for Saint John (disambiguation), Saint John, most commonly refers to: * San Juan, Puerto Rico * San Juan, Argentina * San Juan, Metro Manila, a highly urbanized city in the Philippines San Juan may also refer to: Places Arge ...

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Lima Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...

and

Porto Alegre Porto Alegre (, ; , ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian Federative units of Brazil, state of Rio Grande do Sul. Its population of roughly 1.4 million inhabitants (2022) makes it the List of largest cities in Brazil, 11th-most p ...

, and for a number of expositions in

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

and

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. At the beginning of the 1990s, he joined two movements for Indigenous peoples' rights: the Asociación Indigenista del Paraguay and the Asociación Apoyo a las Comunidades Indígenas del Paraguay (ACIP). From 1991 to 1996 he was Director of Culture of the city of Asunción. In 1996 he won a national contest to edit a bill on culture, which was later adopted by parliament as ''Ley Escobar 3051/06''. From 2008 to 2013 he was the Minister of Culture of the government of

Fernando Lugo Fernando Armindo Lugo Méndez (; born 30 May 1951) is a Paraguayan politician and Loss of clerical state, laicized Bishops in the Catholic Church, Catholic bishop who was President of Paraguay from 2008 to 2012. Previously, he was a Roman Cath ...

.Circulo de Bellas Artes
biography
He was a chairman of the Paraguayan section of the

International Association of Art Critics The International Association of Art Critics (French: ''Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art'', AICA) was founded in 1950 to revitalize critical discourse, which suffered under Fascism during World War II. Affiliated with UNESCO AICA wa ...

, and has written more than ten books.

Recognitions

Escobar received several international awards, including: *1984: Latin American Art Critic of the Year, from the Argentinean department of the

*1991: Premio Sudamérica of the Centro de Estudios Históricos, Antropológicos y Sociales of

*1997: Commander in the

Order of Rio Branco Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * ...

*1998: Scholarship of the Guggenheim Foundation *1998: Key to the city of

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Prince Claus Award The Prince Claus Fund was established in 1996 and named after Prince Claus of the Netherlands. It is annually subsidized by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since 1997, the Fund has annually presented the international Prince Claus Awa ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

*2000: Basilio Uribe Prize of the Argentinean Association of Art Critics *2003: Honorary Professor of the Instituto Universitario Nacional de Arte (IUNA), Buenos Aires *2004: Bartolomé de las Casas Prize of the Casa de América,

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

*2005: Order of May,

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

*2009: Knight in the

Ordre des Arts et des Lettres The Order of Arts and Letters () is an order of France established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture. Its supplementary status to the was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose is the recognition of significant ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

*2011: Prize for Distinguished Contribution to Art Criticism,

(AICA) * 2013: Beloved Son of Asuncion Distinction, Asuncion, Paraguay * 2015: Master of Art, Asuncion, Paraguay

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Escobar, Ticio 20th-century philosophers 21st-century philosophers 1947 births Art critics Paraguayan critics Art historians Paraguayan curators Living people Mathematical logicians Museum directors Paraguayan academics Paraguayan politicians Paraguayan male writers People from Asunción Philosophers of law Philosophical anthropology Paraguayan philosophers Universidad Católica Nuestra Señora de la Asunción alumni