Tlali (: Tlalli: land or earth; ) is a sculpture depicting the face of an Indigenous woman by the Mexican contemporary artist Pedro Reyes. It was installed at a wing of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), which opened in April 2026.
Originally, a similar large-scale version depicting a colossal head was planned to replace the Monument to Christopher Columbus on Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma in March 2022, while a smaller version was exhibited at the New York City's Lisson Gallery in May 2021. The version intended for Paseo de la Reforma was inspired by the Olmec colossal heads, and was conceived to honor 500 years of the resistance of Indigenous women. The government of Mexico City, headed by Claudia Sheinbaum, announced in October 2020 that the monument to Columbus would be removed from its plinth, officially for restoration. She subsequently announced that a public consultation would be held to determine the statue's future, but it ultimately did not take place. In September 2021, Sheinbaum announced that Tlali would replace the monument to Columbus following a request from 5,000 Indigenous women to decolonize the avenue.
The announcement of Tlali, its design and name, and the selection of Reyes as its sculptor received mixed reactions, including from Indigenous people. The decision to remove the Columbus statue also generated controversy and became part of the debate surrounding the sculpture. Following criticism, Sheinbaum said that a committee would determine the project's future, and a month later she stated that a copy of The Young Woman of Amajac would be placed there instead. However, feminists intervened the empty Columbus' plinth and installed their own proposal, the Glorieta de las mujeres que luchan. Although the Mexico City government never formally declared the Tlali 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.
A monument honoring the Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus was located on a roundabout along Paseo de la Reforma, in the borough of Cuauhtémoc. The statue 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). The head of government of the city, Claudia Sheinbaum, said public debates would be held in 2021 to determine the future of the monument. On the other hand, the Committee for Monuments and Artistic Works in Public Spaces (, COMAEP) is responsible for evaluating, approving, and overseeing the installation, relocation, and conservation of monuments and public artworks in Mexico City.
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, she proposed its relocation to Parque América, in Polanco. She added that a collosal head sculpture named Tlali would replace the statue of Columbus, to honor 500 years of the resistance of Indigenous women, and that the relocation was not intended to "erase history" but to "deliver social justice". She also mentioned that the decision was taken after receiving 5,000 signatures from Indigenous women who called to "decolonize Paseo de la Reforma".
Description
Tlali is a sculpture by the Mexican artist Pedro Reyes. 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.
Tlali was planned to be made of volcanic rock and was being sculpted in three workshops located in Iztapalapa, Chimalhuacán, and Coyoacán by women artisans and sculptors. In Coyoacán, where Reyes also lives, 150 stone blocks were produced for the creation of the sculpture, each measuring in height and weighing . This division facilitates transportation.
Reyes felt honored to be selected to sculpt it because he believes there are no monuments in the country honoring Indigenous women, who "have supported the country". The sculpture's name was taken from the Nahuatl word , meaning "land" or "earth". He stated that the sculpture reflected the common association of the earth with "Mother Earth" rather than "Father Earth".
The sculpture was based on the art of the Olmecs, a pre-Columbian civilization that developed during the Mesoamerican Preclassic Era. Reyes was inspired by the Olmec colossal heads and said he had difficulty transforming Tlali into a female figure because the original heads depicted men.
Tlali was projected to be high, supported by an additional tezontle base. Its diameter would have been with an approximate weight of . 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. 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.
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 drew polarized reactions. Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador supported the decision to install Tlali. 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 promoted "justice and recognition for all Indigenous women". Senator said the project sought to change the mindset of Mexicans, as it challenges the notion that foreign things are better.
Removal of the Columbus statue
Regarding the removal of the Columbus monument, several commentators, including Reyes, 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 , 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.
Art historian stated that even during the ruling of Porfirio Díaz – which she described as authoritarian and patriarchal – monuments were installed following consultation processes. Deputy cited the removal of the Columbus statue as one of what he described as several authoritarian actions performed by Sheinbaum. Journalist Eugenio Fernández Vázquez argued that the government's treatment of the monument reflected what he described as an authoritarian resistance to criticism and proposals from outside the government.
Selection of Reyes as sculptor The choice of Reyes as the sculptor received criticism, namely because he is neither a woman nor Indigenous. 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. Reyes said that the creator was not the most important part, as "nobody remembers who made the Statue of Liberty or the Angel of Independence"; instead, it is the artwork what prevails.
Indigenist view Other critics perceived Tlali as a work intended to promote state-sponsored . Archeologist said the project 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. Josefa Sánchez Contreras, Zoque PhD candidate in Mesoamerican studies, called it an act of "desperate neoindigenism", comparing it to other similar acts carried out by López Obrador during his presidential term, while infrastructure projects elsewhere in the country were being developed on Indigenous lands. Writers Gabriela Jauregui and 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.
Name and design Tlali name received commentary, including from Mixe linguist and writer Yásnaya Aguilar, who questioned the Nahuatl name when Olmecs would have spoken Mixe–Zoque languages. She noted an inconsistency in selecting an Olmec woman to represent Indigenous peoples, arguing that, as a pre-Columbian society, the Olmecs do not fit conventional definitions of Indigenous identity, which are often tied to communities that experienced colonization. Aguilar also criticized the generalization of women in public sculpture, contrasting it with the individual recognition given to men. Similarly, researcher Lucía Melgar commented that Tlali represented women as "generic, mute and immobilized". Historian said the sculpture exemplified an "essentialist view of Indigenous people as all the same".
Counterproposal
In response to Tlali, a group of feminists installed Justicia on 25 September 2021, which is a purple wooden statue of a woman with a raised fist on the empty Columbus plinth. They symbolically renamed the intersection the (Women Who Fight Roundabout). Their project arose after the removal of the statue of Columbus but remained in the planning stages until the announcement of Tlali. They made the decision to move forward with the installation after observing what they described as a series of missteps by the authorities.
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 ("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 , who stated in favor of Tlali:
Revocation
Due to the controversy, Sheinbaum determined that the COMAEP would determine the most appropriate option to replace Columbus. 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. For Sheinbaum, the rejection of Tlali in favor of Columbus "revealed the classism and racism present in Mexico City".