Pedro Reyes On the Practical Duty and Emotional Impact of Public Art

Mexican artist Pedro Reyes has carved out a formidable reputation in the international art world by rejecting its fixation on commodification and the commercialization of creation, instead embracing art as a vehicle for social change. For Reyes, art is not merely an aesthetic pursuit but a tool of anthropological and sociological inquiry—one that can catalyze action and leave a tangible impact on the communities that engage with it. Known for his large-scale projects, Reyes employs sculpture, performance and video to dissect social and political issues, using his practice to critique contemporary society and provoke reflection on individual responsibility. His ultimate aim is to ignite collective transformation by stimulating interaction and creativity.

With Mexico City Art Week in full swing and the international art world converging at ZONAMACO, Observer met with the celebrated artist in his striking concrete atelier and home in the city’s southern neighborhood of Coyoacán. Two blocks away, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo once lived, as did Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky during an era when this neighborhood was the cultural epicenter of Mexico City. In the early 20th century, its bohemian cafés played host to writers, poets, musicians, artists and political figures, making it a breeding ground for avant-garde movements, experimental art and radical ideas. Reyes, deeply attuned to this history, welcomes artists, art professionals, creatives and intellectuals into his studio year-round in an effort to rekindle that spirit of cultural effervescence.

When we met, Reyes had just closed his exhibition at Museo Anahuacalli, “AMNESIA ATÓMICA,” where he presented new and recent sculptures developed from his ongoing explorations of nuclear disarmament and the role of artists in global anti-nuclear campaigns. This line of inquiry also gave rise to the collective project “Artists Against the Bomb,” in which Reyes steps back from traditional notions of authorship to create a collaborative and potentially infinite public work. Participating artists invite an ever-expanding community of new contributors to design calls for universal nuclear disarmament, disseminating the message across posters, postcards, billboards, banners, flags, tee shirts and social media. By allowing the project to grow organically, Reyes ensures that its impact extends far beyond the confines of any one exhibition or institution to achieve the broadest possible circulation of the message.

Organized by Estudio Pedro Reyes in collaboration with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the project now has more than 200 participating artists and a worldwide presence. At Museo Anahuacalli, Reyes integrated his work with the primordial, essential forms of the museum’s pre-Columbian artifacts from Diego Rivera’s collection, presenting Pax Atomica (2023), a birdcage built to the exact dimensions and shape of Little Boy—the atomic bomb used to destroy Hiroshima. Also featured in the exhibition is his iconic Zero Nukes, a large-scale inflatable mushroom cloud sculpture emblazoned with the words “Zero Nukes” in multiple languages. Reyes has presented this piece in numerous public and institutional settings, including Times Square in May 2022. This latest work exemplifies his aesthetic strategy: often confrontational, his art harnesses the power of symbols to encapsulate entire narratives, allowing meaning to unravel as the viewer encounters the work and begins to interrogate its deeper implications within the context of its creation and circulation.

A similar motivation drives Reyes’ latest film, Under the Cloud, a short commissioned by SITE SANTA FE for the exhibition “Pedro Reyes: DIRECT ACTION” (2023) and now circulating in various exhibition venues and other channels. In it, the artist compiles interviews with activists from lands where the U.S. military has tested nuclear bombs, exposing the devastating effects of nuclear testing, uranium mining and nuclear waste disposal. “I learned a lot from these activists that are First Nations,” Reyes told Observer. “They also are part of a network of Indigenous activists around the world because this has happened in many places, you know, like France was testing in Algeria and the British were testing in Australia.” From this initial investigation, Reyes began exploring how the colonial logic of exploitation has evolved into a global system of nuclear colonialism—one that persists today. “There’s a network of activists that I met through ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Indigenous activists are among the most active because they have also been the ones that have been most affected.”

Reyes has been addressing nuclear disarmament in his work since 2013, but intensified his efforts in 2019 when the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists commissioned him to create Amnesia Atomica. “As the Bulletin says, ‘we are 90 seconds to midnight,’ meaning that we’ve never been closer to experiencing nuclear war ever in human history.” He underscored the urgency of the issue: “Once you’re aware of this, it is very clear that nuclear energy is not clean nor green. The permanence of radiation for thousands of years and the impossibility of fully containing leaks, accidents or explosions makes it impossible to control.” Through Under the Cloud, Reyes highlights the importance of viewing these dangers through an Indigenous worldview, one rooted in the care of the land and the preservation of its delicate balance.

Now, Reyes is developing a new film on the same subject. This time, he envisions a more expansive “film essay” that will require dedicated screenings. He hopes the work will reach audiences beyond the art world, fostering broader awareness of the narratives that shape public perception of nuclear power. “This other film is about how the nuclear bomb has been portrayed in cinema and how the narratives around it in media have shaped public opinion.”

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While Reyes studied architecture and identifies primarily as a sculptor, his conception of sculpture extends far beyond its material form, embracing its broader public significance with a distinctly militant and political edge. His practice is fundamentally rooted in the reactions and responses his works provoke, designing not only individual three-dimensional objects but also shaping the entire environment around them. In this sense, Reyes operates as a social sculptor, creating art that functions as a transformative political tool—one that challenges the status quo, fosters critical thinking and builds resilience against the existing order. His work interrogates the mechanisms of propaganda, ideology and utopian promises that promise a better world but are deeply tainted with the germs of the unfair existing system.

Reyes is currently working on a project for the inaugural Bogotá Biennial—one that he sees as an opportunity to explore the complexities of monuments and their significance in public and civic life. “Most often, the problem was with the historical character represented, as they were symbols of power linked to colonialism or imperialism,” he reflected. He believes it’s essential to not fall into the trap of a generalized, generic rejection of monuments per se, convinced as he is that society still needs monuments to forge a shared identity as a democratic body with common values. “Very few people want to go into politics today, but it’s important to have good politicians. Some politicians have been fundamental for change in a good direction.”

One of Reyes’s recent ideas has been to create a sculpture dedicated to Antanas Mockus Šivickas, the mathematician, philosopher and politician who played a key role in shaping modern Colombia. “I’m very much interested in sculpture to undertake this challenge,” Reyes says, convinced that sculpture remains the best medium to engage with the notion of the monument and make it relevant in an era when their meaning, impact and legitimacy are increasingly questioned. He acknowledges the widespread calls for the removal of statues honoring historical figures associated with slavery, colonization and oppression, but believes that monuments can and should evolve beyond their problematic past.

One of the most controversial aspects of monuments is their association with ‘heroes’ who no longer resonate with the public. Yet Reyes maintains that people have an intrinsic need to connect with something recognizable, despite his own recent shift toward geometric and symbolic abstraction. “I’m interested in figuration. Figuration is the hardest form of art. It is 1,000 times more difficult than abstraction, and it’s because you want to go beyond realism and have a personal style.” As we discuss the broader cultural and societal shifts that have destabilized long-standing norms and values, Reyes said that in the absence of shared ideals, social media and other media idols have emerged as substitutes. Meanwhile, public and political life continue to lose their grip on collective consciousness, with many feeling powerless in the face of global geopolitical and economic forces. “I don’t think that politics or power are bad. I think that bad politicians and bad use of power are bad. However, government and politics are not bad themselves. We still need them.”

What emerges from our conversation is an artist who will never stop interrogating and testing the political function of art, regardless of the challenges posed by the political and societal climate. “I feel that being a public artist is an extreme sport,” Reyes said at one point. “Public space is public—everybody feels they have a say, and the ownership of space is very contested. However, it is a good opportunity to say something you’re not meant to, especially if it’s not intended to be a permanent piece. It can be a platform to present an idea, test it with the public at large and then, maybe, this becomes a permanent monument.”

Reyes was one of the pioneers in conceiving art as a social platform—an interactive space where individuals and communities can confront one another, testing both societal and personal behaviors. His work plays within this tension, seeking to liberate not only personal freedom of expression but also the unfiltered, instinctive participation that affirms our fundamental nature as social beings.

One of the most complete examples of this approach is Sanatorium, which Reyes will soon restage for the Macau Biennial. First conceived in 2013, this seminal work operates as a societal experiment and transformational experience, exploring themes of healing, recovery and collective human resilience—particularly in the context of societal trauma, violence and personal psychological struggles. “This work has been active fifteen times. Even though it’s a social practice project, it’s a social structure designed to be restaged several times and every time consistently. It deals with something universal in humankind, in that sense,” he said.

With Sanatorium, art becomes a temporary refuge from the relentless pace of urban life, a space that oscillates between reality and parody, offering a moment of respite for a civilization exhausted by its own contradictions. Reyes has crafted both a didactic environment and a psychotherapeutic tool—a habitat of small participatory interventions designed to free individuals from impurities, media saturation, alienation and the creeping depersonalization of modern existence. The work functions as a form of “group therapy,” a purifying journey against the forces that seek to conform humanity, trapping it within an increasingly homogenized social landscape devoid of deeper values.

Moving through Sanatorium’s memory chambers, spectators interact with inanimate objects in collective environments, sometimes under the supervision of a therapist in a white coat. The goal is to create a space where individuals can reestablish their relationship with themselves and with others, transforming the exhibition into a universal experience—one in which the spectator is invited to “see his whole life as an exhibition.” The work itself unfolds across four distinct environments: genealogy, work, education and love.

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Ultimately, Sanatorium is a tool for community and collective healing rather than individual therapy. By working together, participants are invited to reflect on their psychological well-being while engaging in activities that connect them to the shared experiences of others. For Reyes, art is not just a means of self-examination or critique of the world—it is also an instrument of transformation. “I believe that art can be a form of catharsis, which in Greek means purification, which is to expel a toxic substance out of the body.” His practice aligns with the enduring, if often utopian, belief shared by many artists across the world: that art has the power to change reality, or at the very least, to offer new perspectives from which to view it.

Reyes sees most public art interventions as existing within the paradox of being both limited and full of opportunity—ephemeral by nature yet capable of making a lasting impact. At the same time, he is committed to creating more permanent works of public art. “It is also important for artists of the present, for contemporary artists, to value, to seize these public spaces and to try to make permanent public art,” he said, adding that if contemporary artists do not step in, these opportunities are often filled by Instagram-friendly, vacuous art—or worse, by advertising. “However, public space is the most democratic of all forms of expression because it’s like a museum, which is open twenty-four hours a day and free. I think there are opportunities there that we should try to fulfill… Most of the public art we see in our cities was probably made more than 70 years ago or in previous centuries. Generations have passed without leaving a mark. It’s time to change that and create something that can resonate with both the present and the future.”

Reyes is optimistic about the evolution of Mexico’s contemporary art scene, one in which he has played a significant role since its emergence in the 1990s. Like other artists Observer has profiled, he is convinced that Mexico is experiencing a new cultural renaissance. “I think that Mexico is in a very good moment in terms of culture. There has been huge growth in the number of galleries. Mexico City is now a very cosmopolitan scene, as many foreign artists have moved to Mexico.” However, this influx has also led to the risks of gentrification and rising costs. “Mexico City is not as cheap as it used to be, but at the same time, it has become a cultural capital,” he added. “Nonetheless, an important professionalization has taken place in the Mexican art world as it has grown, and now there is a rising appetite for Mexican art among new audiences who can support this growth in the long term.”