Kao dio rasprave formirane oko pokreta Black Lives Matter 2021. godine osnovana je inicijativa Chicago Monuments Project sa zadatkom propitivanja značenja umjetnosti u javnom prostoru, njezine uloge, poruke, forme i medija. Rasprava je zatvorena u ljeto 2022. godine, a dijelom se ticala ideološke pozadine para skulptura Indijanaca Ivana Meštrovića, oblikovanih u New Yorku i Zagrebu 1926. i 1927., a postavljenih 1928. godine u javni prostor grada Chicaga. U medijima su dominirale izjave Dalibora Prančevića i Barbare Vujanović, poznavatelja Meštrovićeva opusa i moderne skulpture u Hrvatskoj, koji su Indijance “branili” s obzirom na njihove formalne kvalitete te bivanje dijelom hrvatske nacionalne umjetnosti, vezujući ih i za širi urbanistički kontekst Chicaga te sagledavajući uvjete i okolnosti njihova postavljanja u javni prostor toga grada, a s druge su strane Nikola Vukobratović i Ivana Hanaček temi pristupali iz vizure postkolonijalnih studija, prema kojoj promicanje narativa o nadmoći i moralnoj superiornosti bijele rase podrazumijeva predstavljanje netočnih i/ili ponižavajućih karakterizacija Indijanaca. Ponajprije je rasprava vođena o tome predstavljaju li Indijanci selektivan i jednostrani pogled na američku povijest te prikazuju li karikaturalno i stereotipno američke starosjedioce, u napetosti između dva suprotstavljena mišljenja stručnjaka i javnosti. Postkolonijalna teorija u središtu svog interesa ima odnos kolonizatora i koloniziranog, kolonijalnog i postkolonijalnog u prošlosti i sadašnjosti, a u slučaju Indijanaca rasprava se ticala homogeniziranih stereotipnih predodžaba o drugima i suptilne konstrukcije subjekata iz skupine antitetično postavljene spram dominantnih pozicija, o kojoj se konstruiraju stereotipi i koje se tim stereotipima poima. Problemski fokus ovog rada je usporedna analiza recepcije skulptura od njihova nastanka do danas. As part of the debate centering on the Black Lives Matter movement, the Chicago Monuments Project Commission was established in 2021, with the task of reviewing the meaning of public art, its role, message, form and medium. The discussion concluded in the summer of 2022, and it touched upon the ideological background of the pair of Indian sculptures by Ivan Meštrović, made in New York and Zagreb in 1926 and 1927, and erected in the public space of the city of Chicago in 1928. Statements by Dalibor Prančević and Barbara Vujanović, experts on Meštrović’s work and modern sculpture in Croatia, dominated the media coverage. Prančević and Vujanović “defended” the Indians because of their formal qualities and for being part of Croatian national art, relating them to the wider urban context of Chicago and considering the conditions and the circumstances of their placement in Chicago’s public space. In contrast, Nikola Vukobratović and Ivana Hanaček approached the issue from the point of view of postcolonial studies, according to which the promotion of narratives about white race supremacy and moral superiority means presenting inaccurate and/or humiliating characterizations of Native Americans. The discussion primarily revolved around whether the Indians present a selective and one-sided view of American history and whether they caricature and stereotype Native Americans, riding on the tension between the opposing opinions of the experts and the general public. Postcolonial theory primarily deals with the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, the colonial and the postcolonial in the past and the present, and in the case of the Indians, the discussion concerned homogenized stereotypical images of others and the subtle construction of subjects from the point of view of a group antithetical to the dominant position, about which stereotypes are constructed and which is understood through these stereotypes. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the reception of the sculptures from their creation until the present day.