In a project titled “Palas por pistolas,” the Mexican artist Pedro Reyes partnered with the government of Mexico to make gardening tools out melted-down guns: 1,527 trees were then planted. In the project “Disarm,” guns were transformed into musical instruments: a concert in Mexico City followed. The sculptures and amate paintings featured in Reyes’s new exhibition demonstrate a similar appeal for social change. His sculpture Detente (2023), which depicts a hand curved in the shape of a dove, is named for the concept of relaxed hostilities between two entities, specifically in the vein of disarmament. In his sculpture of a lone figure clutching a book, Reyes—who founded Mexico’s first art-lending library at the Museo Carrillo Gil, in Mexico City—pays tribute to Aztec and Indigenous Mexican cultures. The work is titled Amoxcalli, which is the Nahuatl word for “library.” Fusing ancient and modern, Reyes imparts his message of education and pacifism. —Paulina Prosnitz