Pedro Reyes’s Black Sun belongs to a series of monumental sculptures made from volcanic stone, marble, white onyx, and concrete—materials that echo Mexico’s complex, multilayered history. Aesthetically, the sculpture seems to hover right at the midpoint between the ancient and the modern, recalling the sculptural traditions of pre-Columbian Mexican civilizations while simultaneously resonating with the work of European 20th-century modern sculpture. This work depicts a large, graceful, elongated hand holding a brass rod aloft between the tips of its thumb and little finger. The points at which the hand makes contact with the brass element are slightly indented, creating a visceral sensation of soft flesh that contradicts the hardness of the rock. The work involves a unique additional aspect: while it can be exhibited indoors amid a gallery setting, outdoors it functions as a working sundial. The title of the sculpture contains a rich intersection of references that bridge Mesoamerican mythology, medieval alchemy, and the esoteric undercurrents of Nazism. Within Mexican culture, the black sun is associated with the diurnal journey of the sun god Quetzalcoatl. Within alchemical traditions of the Middle Ages, the black sun refers to the first stage in the process in which lead is converted into gold. Lastly, within the modern European context, the black sun motif, known as the Schwarze Sonne or the Sonnenrad (“sun wheel”), derives from the neo-paganist religious belief systems that recur in German nationalist literature from throughout the 1930s and 1940s.