LACMA Instagram Bait Was Banned in Mexico City
Pedro Reyes, Tlali , 2026. LACMA A cancelled sculpture has replaced $21 smoothies as LACMA's latest controversy. An open letter of 80 Mexican intellectuals is accusing the museum of cultural insensitivity for its display of Pedro Reyes' Tlali , the 18-ft-high Olmec-style stone head commissioned for a site outside the Geffen Galleries' bookstore. In 2021 Reyes was commissioned to create a similar sculpture to replace Mexico City's monument to Christopher Columbus. It was to swap the ur-colonialist with the likeness of an Indigenous woman. After the project was approved, critics accused Reyes of cultural appropriation. It was argued that a Mestizo man was a tonedeaf choice to sculpt an Indigenous woman. The criticism was strong enough that the project was sidelined indefinitely. Rendering of Reyes' Tlalli for Mexico City LACMA commissioned Reyes to produce a similar sculpture for the Geffen. There are differences: The Mexico City head was to be the in the round, wh...
