José Luis Cuevas Museum

Inaugurated in 1992 inside the old Convent of Santa Inés, the José Luis Cuevas Museum houses the collection of controversial artist José Luis Cuevas. Its most notable item on display is his bizarre sculpture of a giantess whose knee has a rather ghostly appearance.

Cuevas was the best-known face of what in Mexico was called the “Breakaway Generation,” an era in the 1950s when some artists decided to leave behind the revolutionary muralist nationalism of the Mexican School of Art.

Cuevas created the 26-foot-tall “La Giganta” in 1985, the same year it was decided to open a museum in his honor. According to the lore, when he was working on the bronze artwork, a face-shaped wrinkle appeared in the giantess’s knee. Though smelters offered to fix the uncanny joint, Cuevas purportedly refused their assistance, as he claimed the face belonged to a ghost who haunted the former convent.

The identity of the woman Cuevas based the giantess on was never revealed. On the day of the sculpture’s inauguration, three women demanded to be recognized as the model. However, the actual model purportedly remained silent, admiring the sculpture without revealing her role in its creation.