Tlali
Sculpture by Pedro Reyes
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Tlali (Nahuatl languages: Tlalli: land or earth; ⓘ) is a sculpture of an Indigenous woman by Mexican contemporary artist Pedro Reyes. It was installed at a new wing opening at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in April 2026.
| Tlali | |
|---|---|
Tlali installed at the Geffen Galleries in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art | |
| Artist | Pedro Reyes |
| Year | 2026 |
| Medium | Volcanic rock |
| Dimensions | 5.5 m (18 ft) |
| Weight | 80 t (79 long tons; 88 short tons) |
| Location | Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles |
A similar large-scale version head was intended to replace the Monument to Christopher Columbus on Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma, while a smaller version was exhibited at the Lisson Gallery in New York City in May 2021. The version intended for Paseo de la Reforma was inspired by the Olmec colossal heads and was meant to honor 500 years of the resistance of Indigenous women. The mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, announced in September 2021 that Tlali would replace the monument to Columbus, which had been removed from its plinth in October 2020, officially for restoration.
The announcement, design, name, and selection of Reyes as the sculptor of the Reforma sculpture, as well the undiscussed removal of the Columbus statue, received mixed opinions. Days later, following criticism, Sheinbaum said that a committee would determine the project's future, and in October she stated that a copy of The Young Woman of Amajac, discovered earlier that year, would be placed there instead. Although the Mexico City government never formally declared the project canceled, journalists and scholars have generally regarded it as such.
The version installed at the LACMA lacks several features present in the original Mexico City proposal and, according to the museum, differs in both purpose and meaning. Nevertheless, it received criticism linked to the earlier project in Mexico City.
Background: Mexico City project
Inception
In the context of the commemorations of the 500th anniversary of the Fall of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire and present-day Mexico City, the city government announced several changes and celebrations to take place in 2021.[1]
Tlali was set to replace a monument honoring the Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus, originally located on a roundabout along Paseo de la Reforma, in Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City.[2] The statue of Columbus was removed on 10 October 2020, prior to an attempted demonstration to topple it two days later, on Columbus Day. According to the city government, it was removed amid a series of restoration works carried out by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).[3] The head of government of the city, Claudia Sheinbaum, said public debates would be held in 2021 to determine the future of the monument.[4] On the other hand, the Committee for Monuments and Artistic Works in Public Spaces (Comité de Monumentos y Obras Artísticas en Espacios Públicos, COMAEP) is responsible for evaluating, approving, and overseeing the installation, relocation, and conservation of monuments and public artworks in Mexico City.[5]
On 5 September 2021, International Indigenous Women's Day, Sheinbaum announced that the statue of Columbus would not be returned to its original site. Instead, a relocation to Parque América, Polanco, was proposed.[2] She also said that Tlali would replace the statue of Columbus, to honor 500 years of the resistance of Indigenous women,[6] and that the relocation was not intended to "erase history" but to "deliver social justice".[7] She also mentioned that the decision was taken after receiving 5,000 signatures from Indigenous women who called to "decolonize Paseo de la Reforma".[8]
Description
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Tlali was sculpted by Mexican artist Pedro Reyes.[9] He explained that the government had chosen him because there were few sculptors in the country specializing in monumental stonework and that the project had to be completed before March 2022.[10]
Tlali was planned to be made of volcanic rock and, before the project was canceled, was being sculpted in three workshops located in Iztapalapa, Chimalhuacán, and Coyoacán by women artisans and sculptors.[11] In Coyoacán, where Reyes also lives, 150 stone blocks were produced for the creation of the sculpture, each measuring 75 centimeters (30 in) in height and weighing 2 metric tons (2.0 long tons; 2.2 short tons). This division facilitates transportation.[12]
Reyes said he felt honored to be selected to sculpt it, as there are no monuments honoring Indigenous women in the country, who, in his view, "have supported the country".[12] The sculpture was titled Tlali, from the Nahuatl word tlalli, meaning "land" or "earth".[9] He stated that the sculpture reflected the common association of the Earth with "Mother Earth" rather than "Father Earth".[13]
The sculpture was based on Olmec art, created by the Olmecs, a pre-Columbian civilization that developed during the Mesoamerican Preclassic Era.[7] Reyes was inspired by the Olmec colossal heads and said he had difficulty transforming Tlali into a female figure since the original heads were based on men.[11]
Tlali was projected to be a head 6.5 meters (21 ft) high, supported by an additional 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) tezontle base.[14] Its diameter would have been 5 m (16 ft) with an approximate weight of 150 metric tons (150 long tons; 170 short tons). The eyes were inspired by those of a jaguar, and the lips were modeled on two snakes. For the hair, a pair of braids that converge at the occipital region were chosen to form a symbol of Nahui Ollin, the Earthquake Sun.[15] According to Reyes, he first designed the figure to have a bun but anthropologists told him that pre-Hispanic cultures used braids that imitated the appearance of ears of ergots.[16]
Reception
The announcement, the proposed design and name, the selection of Reyes as sculptor, and the removal of the Columbus statue without prior public discussion all drew polarized reactions.[17] Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador supported the decision to install the sculpture.[18] Similarly, local representatives and senators from Morena – the ruling party of Mexico, of which Sheinbaum and López Obrador are members – endorsed the project. Congresswoman Alejandra Méndez Vicuña said the sculpture celebrated "Indigenous peoples and their women". For Representative Guadalupe Chávez Contreras, Tlali promotes "justice and recognition for all Indigenous women". Senator César Cravioto Romero said the project promotes a shift in the mindset of Mexicans, as it challenges the notion that foreign things are better.[19]
Removal of the Columbus statue
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Regarding the removal of the Columbus monument, several commentators,[20] including Reyes,[12] noted that there had been previous attempts to topple it, including in 1992 by Indigenous groups, and that its removal aided its preservation and maintenance. For Cuauhtémoc Medina González, then curator at the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, the making of Tlali exemplifies the process by which a work of a distinctly Mexican character is created by the government without public consensus, in which an author aligned with the administration in power is asked to reinterpret – in this case – an Indigenous representation, while historical elements are removed to assign them a new meaning favorable to political allies and tourists.[20][21]
Art historian Angélica Velázquez Guadarrama stated that even during the ruling of Porfirio Díaz – which she described as authoritarian and patriarchal – monuments were installed following consultation processes.[22] Deputy Gibrán Ramírez cited the removal of the Columbus statue of what he described as one authoritarian action performed by Sheinbaum.[23] Journalist Eugenio Fernández Vázquez argued that within Morena, critics are perceived as political opponents, which, in his view, fosters authoritarian resistance to dissent.[24]
Selection of Reyes as sculptor
The choice of Reyes as the sculptor received criticism, namely because he is neither a woman nor Indigenous.[25] More than 300 people associated with the arts and cultural sector signed a petition to Sheinbaum requesting the exclusion of Reyes from the project and the creation of a committee composed of women from Indigenous communities to choose a monument to represent them.[10] Reyes said that the creator was not the most important part, as "nobody remembers who made the Statue of Liberty [created by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi] or the Angel of Independence [created by Antonio Rivas Mercado]"; instead, it is the artwork what prevails.[10]
Indigenist view
Other critics perceived Tlali as a work intended to promote state-sponsored indigenismo. The archeologist Sandra Rozenta said the process reminded her of archaeological discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico region in the 1940s, when the Olmec culture came to be regarded as the "mother culture" of Mesoamerica. This interpretation was later adopted by politicians, who used reproductions of Olmec colossal heads in international exhibitions as symbols of a modern nation with a deep and rich cultural past.[26] Josefa Sánchez Contreras, Zoque PhD candidate in Mesoamerican studies, called it an act of "desperate neoindigenism", which is added to other similar acts carried out by López Obrador during his presidential term, while in the rest of the country, infrastructure projects were developed on the lands of Indigenous peoples.[27] Writers Gabriela Jauregui and Luna Marán similarly argued that the government attempted to use Indigenous women as an accessory while these are belittled, subjected to violence, silenced, disappeared, or killed for defending their lands.[20]
Name and design
Tlali's name received commentary, including from Mixe linguist and writer Yásnaya Aguilar, who questioned the Nahuatl name when Olmecs would have spoken Mixe–Zoque languages.[28] She noted an inconsistency in selecting an Olmec woman to represent Indigenous peoples, arguing that, as a pre-Columbian society, Olmecs do not fit conventional definitions of Indigenous identity, which are often tied to communities that experienced colonization.[29] Aguilar also criticized the generalization of women in public sculpture, in comparison to men who are individually honored. Similarly, researcher Lucía Melgar commented that it represents women as "generic, mute and immobilized". Historian Federico Navarrete said Tlali exemplifies an "essentialist view of Indigenous people as all the same".[28]
Counterproposal
In response to Tlali, on 25 September 2021, a group of feminists installed Justicia, a purple wooden statue of a woman with a raised fist on the empty Columbus plinth. They symbolically renamed the intersection the Glorieta de las mujeres que luchan (Women Who Fight Roundabout).[30] Their project arose after the removal of the statue of Columbus but remained in the planning stages until the announcement of Tlali. The decision to move forward with the installation was made after observing what they described as a series of missteps by the authorities.[31]
Response by Indigenous women
By contrast, a separate meeting brought together 5,000 Indigenous women from communities in the Valley of Mexico, who signed a second petition in support of Tlali, arguing that the project should proceed as an initial step toward "representation and historical justice". The gathering, dubbed La descolonización de Reforma ("The decolonization of Reforma Avenue"), was held at the Museum of Mexico City and presided over by Sheinbaum. It was also attended by senator Jesusa Rodríguez and several Indigenous activists, such as human rights defender Hermelinda Tiburcio, who stated in favor of Tlali:
"Maybe for society this is not important. Perhaps, because of racism or discrimination, it is seen as something ugly or unworthy; but for us, Indigenous women, it means visibility, recognition, and representation".[32]
Cancellation
Due to the controversy, Sheinbaum determined that the COMAEP would determine the most appropriate option to replace Columbus.[24] On 12 October 2021, she announced the installation of an enlarged copy of The Young Woman of Amajac, discovered in January, to replace the statue of Columbus instead of Tlali.[33] For Sheinbaum, the rejection of Tlali, her original proposal, in favor of Columbus "revealed the classism and racism present in Mexico City".[34]
Although the government of the city never announced the project's cancellation, journalists and academics have considered it canceled.[5][35][36] According to Mexico City's Secretary of Culture, Claudia Curiel de Icaza, as of 2022 the project was still under consideration but The Young Woman of Amajac had higher priority.[37]
Los Angeles County Museum of Art version
In spring 2026, a similar sculpture also named Tlali was installed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in California, United States. The work took two years to complete in Coyoacán, and was installed outdoors for the inauguration of a new building in April 2026. Unlike the original proposal, this version of Tlali depicts only a face rather than a full head. The sculpture is made of volcanic rock, and is 5.5 meters (18 ft) tall, weighing 80 metric tons (79 long tons; 88 short tons).[13][38]
According to Gillian Glover of Time Out, Tlali is found next to the gift shop, and its colors blend with those of concrete wall and floor.[39] Robin Pogrebin of The New York Times described the place as a selfie spot,[40] an opinion echoed by William Poundstone.[41]
Reception in Mexico
The newer version of Tlali also received criticism from Mexican culture workers because of its connection to the earlier Mexico City proposal. In an open letter, written in English and Spanish, and signed by 80 academics, the signatories argued that the LACMA deliberately ignored the controversy surrounding the original project. They wrote that Tlali "is a figure likely to have been taken out of Disney's imaginary, reminiscent of Pocahontas and of the 1920s", adding that, in their view, Reyes showed little interest in critically examining the broad concepts of 'woman' and 'Indigenous'".[42]
Critics mentioned that removal of one letter "l" from the word tlalli was done "to appeal anglophones".[43] A spokesperson for LACMA explained that the name Tlali, spelled with a single "l" rather than two, resulted from a Spanish phonetic transliteration of the word, since "ll" ([ˈtla.ʎi]) in Spanish produces a voiced palatal lateral approximant sound rather than the intended voiced dental and alveolar lateral approximants ([ˈtla.li]).[42]
LACMA authorities answered that the sculptures differed in both purpose and meaning, noting that the newer version lacked the decorative pre-Hispanic elements featured in the Mexico City proposal. However, for María Minera, art critic and one of the academics who opposed the original project, the museum's response minimized "the complaints of hundreds of Mexican women" adding that it suggested that "on [the U.S.] side of the border, we don't hear those cries", since the artwork retained both the name and the essence of the Mexico City proposal. Medina González again opposed the installation, calling it "artistically senseless" because, in his view, the result reproduced characteristics of official nationalist art produced 80 years earlier. Meanwhile, for writer Irmgard Emmelhainz, who was also among the original opponents of the project, the sculpture "appears to promote old patronizing misunderstandings", addind that Tlali continues reproducing "stylized folkloric abstractions" rooted in "heteropatriarchal colonial" times.[42]
Other similar works
A similar smaller version named Tlali (less than 1 m [3 ft 3 in] in diameter) was exhibited in Lisson Gallery in New York City in May 2021, as part of Reyes's exhibition, also titled Tlali.[44][45]
Reyes exhibited Citlalli (Nahuatl for star) at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Monterrey in March 2022, which, according to him, discusses decolonization as Tlali does.[46] The following month a six-meter-tall version of Citlalli was exhibited in San Antonio, Texas.[47][48]
