> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# ¡Adiós, Colón! Sculpture of Indigenous Woman Will Replace Mexico City's Columbus
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/sculpture-of-indigenous-woman-will-replace-mexico-city-columbus/
- Published: 2021-09-07T20:05:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:05:48.000Z
- Description: A new piece created by Mexican artist Pedro Reyes depicting an Olmec woman is slated to go up on October 12.
- Author: Valentina Di Liscia
- Tags: News, Christopher Columbus, Mexico, Pedro Reyes, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 09:11 (2021, 2022, part 1)

A towering bronze statue of Christopher Columbus in Mexico City will be replaced with a new sculpture of an Indigenous woman, [said](https://twitter.com/GobCDMX/status/1434635209543139332?ref=hyperallergic.com) Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum this weekend. The monument was [removed](https://apnews.com/article/mexico-mexico-city-columbus-day-60bdc08a7606b41a4825d467d97c5f6c?ref=hyperallergic.com) from its prominent spot in the capital's Paseo de la Reforma last October in advance of [annual protests](https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2020/10/13/in-pictures?ref=hyperallergic.com) by Indigenous groups. Government officials said the work was removed for restoration, but [acknowledged](http://corepoweryogaondemand.com/yoga-sculpt?ref=hyperallergic.com) that it was "time to reflect on Columbus's legacy."

The controversial statue of the Italian colonizer will not go back on its pedestal. Instead, a new sculpture of an Olmec woman by Mexican artist Pedro Reyes will take its place. Sheinbaum made the announcement during a press conference on the International Day of the Indigenous Woman this Saturday, September 5.

“We owe it to them. We exist because of them,” she [said](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/world/americas/mexico-city-columbus-statue.html?ref=hyperallergic.com). “It is the history of our country and our homeland.”

Around [15% of Mexico's population](https://www.iwgia.org/en/mexico/4232-iw-2021-mexico.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) is Indigenous. Last year, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) made a [historic apology](http://asked the country's indigenous Mexica peoples for forgiveness for the abuses inflicted on them during the bloody 1521 Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire.) to the nation's Mexica people for the violence inflicted on them by the Spanish during their conquest of the Aztec Empire in the 16th century.Despite promises by AMLO to improve the lives of Native Mexicans, however, the community continues to face [poverty and other mounting challenges](https://www.iwgia.org/en/mexico/4232-iw-2021-mexico.html?ref=hyperallergic.com), particularly amid the [COVID-19 pandemic](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/08/world/americas/mexico-AMLO-economy-coronavirus.html?ref=hyperallergic.com).

"Statues of colonizers who subjected, by sword and by disease, the inhabitants of this and other continents, are coming down around the world," Reyes told Hyperallergic. "It has taken us 500 years to to change the focus, and today we understand that it wasn't a 'discovery,' it was an invasion."

Reyes was inspired by the Nahuatl word *tlalli*, meaning Earth. "It's such a beautiful word that it inspired me to create an allegory," he said. "I asked myself: what form could this word take? Historically, representations of the Earth are feminine, and that's why my sculpture is a woman."

Taking as a point of departure the tradition of Olmec monumental sculpture, the finished work will also incorporate elements of La Venta art, including the heavy-lidded eyes and down-turned mouth of the “[were-jaguar](https://www.britannica.com/art/were-jaguar?ref=hyperallergic.com)" motif.

Reyes's piece is slated to go up on Día de la Raza, a celebration of diverse Latin American cultures observed by many Spanish-speaking countries on October 12, the day when Columbus arrived to the Americas in 1492.

Last year, amid historic demonstrations against police brutality and racial violence, statues of Columbus were among the [numerous monuments](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/us/confederate-statues-photos.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) that were knocked down, removed, or painted over around the world. Mexico's statue of Columbus previously at Paseo de la Reforma, however, will not be stored or destroyed but relocated to Parque América, a small plaza in the city's Polanco neighborhood.