As the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) officially opens its new building, a group of Mexican cultural workers is opposing the display of a new sculpture by Pedro Reyes inspired by Olmec busts. This sculpture, “Tlali,” is reminiscent of a controversial 2021 proposal by Reyes, which was scrapped by Mexico City after protests from feminist and Indigenous advocates.<\/p>\n
In a new open letter, nearly 80 Mexican critics, artists, and academics have accused the museum of ignoring past activism against Reyes\u2019s work. The signatories, including Maria Minera and Cuauht\u00e9moc Medina, express concern over the museum’s insensitivity to the sculpture’s contentious history in Mexico.<\/p>\n
“Tlali,” displayed at LACMA, differs from the earlier proposal, missing some facial jewelry and shortening its original name “Tlalli.” Reyes has yet to comment on this.<\/p>\n
Back in 2021, Reyes received a commission to replace a Columbus statue in Mexico City with a bust of an Indigenous woman. The assignment was criticized for being awarded to a non-Indigenous male artist and for its perceived monolithic representation of an Indigenous person. Due to public pressure, the commission was eventually referred to an independent committee, and feminist activists later erected a monument to femicide victims in its place.<\/p>\n
The new display of “Tlali” at LACMA has struck a nerve with its critics, who feel the museum is legitimizing a problematic piece. Despite LACMA\u2019s statement about the sculpture’s transformation, critics argue it maintains a colonial representation and overlooks Indigenous voices.<\/p>\n
Overall, Pedro Reyes\u2019s “Tlali” highlights ongoing debates about representation and cultural sensitivity in public art.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) officially opens its new building, a group of Mexican cultural workers is opposing the display of a new sculpture by Pedro Reyes inspired by Olmec busts. This sculpture, “Tlali,” is reminiscent of a controversial 2021 proposal by Reyes, which was scrapped by Mexico City after protests from feminist and Indigenous advocates. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":556191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-556190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=556190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/556191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=556190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=556190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winklersart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=556190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}