Criticism grows around artist chosen to replace Christopher Columbus monument in Mexico City

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The decision to replace a statue of Christopher Columbus towering over Mexico City’s main thoroughfare with a sculpture of an indigenous woman was meant to empower the nation’s indigenous community. But just a week after the project was announced, hundreds of artists, writers and curators from Mexico, many of them indigenous women, signed an open letter of protest, opposing the artist’s selection. Contemporary Mexican Pedro Reyes for the new commission.

We applaud that this highly visible space is occupied by a monument for women, and indigenous women in particular, reads the letter, written by a collective of women and allies working in the arts.

However, we find it unacceptable that Pedro Reyes, a male artist who does not identify as indigenous, was selected to represent the indigenous woman: a generalization which denies the peculiarities and diversity of women who identify as members of nations and Indigenous Peoples. , and place their image in the hands of a white mestizo.

The letter has to date nearly 300 signatories, among the artists Circe Irasema, Mnica Mayer, Amalia Pica and Hctor Zamora.

Erected in 1877 in a dedicated roundabout along Paseo de la Reforma, a major avenue that crosses Mexico City, Christopher Columbus’s bronze was removed last October before protests planned by indigenous groups on Da de la Raza, the day that Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas in 1492. Officials at the time said the sculpture needed restoration, but last weekend the city’s mayor, Claudia Sheinbaum, announced plans to replace the work with a bust of an Olmec woman from Reyes. In an interview with Hyperallergic last week, Reyes said he was inspired by the Nahuatl word tlalli, which means Earth, and its depictions, which often take a female form.

But this proposal claims to represent a generic image of indigenous women consistent with official rhetoric and folklore, said Irmgard Emmelhainz, writer and translator and one of the authors of the letters. Moreover, the commission was awarded by dedazo by pointing a finger, she added, to a problematic undemocratic practice in Mexico in which an official artist is chosen, privileged of projects and honors without fair appeal to competing projects. other artists.

The image was designed by a white male artist without consulting representatives of indigenous communities in Mexico, Emmelhainz told Hyperallergic.

Some indigenous Mexicans who make up around 15% of the country’s population have expressed a desire for funding for the sculpture to be allocated to improving the lives of indigenous women. Others have challenged the sculpture itself; Mexican photographer Yolanda Andrade suggested replacing Reyess’ design with a reproduction of a work by an indigenous sculptor.

Reyes, who is represented by the Lisson International Gallery, is known for his conceptual works with a socio-political subtext. In 2013, for example, he turned thousands of confiscated firearms provided by the Mexican government into musical instruments for an installation called Disarm. The artist has had numerous solo exhibitions in the United States and abroad, at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; the Guggenheim in New York; and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, among other institutions. (Reyes has yet to respond to Hyperallergics’ immediate request for comment.)

Among the sculpture critics is New York-based Mexican artist, performer and educator Pablo Helguera, who publicly published a personal letter he sent to Reyes asking him to reject the commission.

It is important to recognize the type of privilege that white and male Mexican artists have enjoyed, and in particular the systemic racism and sexism that has prevented many Indigenous artists, as well as artists who identify as women, from have the same opportunities, Helguera wrote. It is a taboo subject in Mexico that should have been discussed a long time ago.

A monument on Reforma Avenue is above all a symbol for the people, he continued. But the symbolism of the project a public art project, not a gallery exhibition extends not only to the finished product but also to the selection of the artist. It is a mistake for a white man to once again have the power to determine the image which should represent the history of the indigenous peoples and, by extension, of all Mexicans.

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