Chicago museum postpones Native American pottery exhibit over cultural insensitivity concerns

CHICAGO - In a move museum leadership is calling unprecedented, the Art Institute of Chicago has postponed a major exhibition weeks before its opening because of concerns over insufficient inclusion of the voices of indigenous peoples in the presentation.

"Worlds Within: Mimbres Pottery of the Ancient Southwest," a display of some 70 pieces from about A.D. 1100 made in what is now southwestern New Mexico, was slated to open May 26 in Regenstein Gallery, the museum's primary space for temporary exhibitions.

But James Rondeau, the Art Institute's president and director, said that as the show approached it became increasingly clear that more work needed to be done to represent native voices in the project.

"The principal thing that we have not accomplished is to have an aligned indigenous perspective, scholarly and curatorial, with the project," he said. "And I think that ultimately for us has