-Temporary Exhibit-
COMING SOON: A new exhibit at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, Coiling Kin: The Life of Pueblo Pottery, presents a comprehensive exploration of the permanent collection through Pueblo artists’ perspectives.
This collaboratively-curated exhibition presents Pueblo perspectives on pottery informed by their guiding beliefs, communities, histories, and the enduring practice of this art. Twenty-three potters from 14 Pueblos selected 70 works from the Maxwell Museum’s collection for its first significant display. Contributions from additional Pueblo artists, along with photographs and loan items, facilitate reflections on the deep significance of clay in Pueblo life.
Pueblo peoples’ long habitation of the land is marked with the traces of pottery that record their deep histories in the Southwest and their current lives. Through the voices of the co-curators, this exhibition provides a multi-vocal experience of clay – a cherished offering of Mother Earth – from its raw to worked forms by means of their respectful use of it. The exhibit presents the materials and laborious processes entailed in making pottery infused with potters’ deep spiritual beliefs and dedication. Highlighting clay as a medium for protection and nurturance, the exhibit reveals pottery as an embodied expression of identity and integrity in and through time – an enduring, distinguished art form that remains part of everyday life.
Developing the exhibition was a three-year project. Curators first visited the Maxwell Museum to review the collection and make preliminary selections, then refined them and discussed their choice in video recordings. Throughout, they interacted with each other and Museum staff in small group and whole team meetings, convening collectively on the UNM campus to develop themes and content. Museum staff and a videographer then recorded them at work in their communities and at markets. A final team meeting at UNM completed the exhibit’s organization and content in preparation for its design by Curator of Exhibits Toni Gentilli. Frequent communication facilitated a remarkably smooth process and warm, respectful relationships in this expansive effort of relational curation.
Presented in the round and with extensive use of audio-visual materials, the exhibit introduces the curators and explores four primary themes: clay and its broader purpose in Pueblo Life; kin connections made through pottery in time and across generations within the Southwest; pottery making knowledge and processes; and the contemporary context and future possibilities for pottery. Through this exhibit visitors will experience the embodied language of Pueblo pottery in all its complexity.
OPENING EVENTS: Please join us on Saturday, June 6, 2026, from 2 pm to 4 pm for the opening reception. A panel of curators will discuss their roles in the exhibit, while others will provide small group tours of each of the four exhibit themes. Refreshments will be served.
CONTACTS: For media inquiries, please contact the Maxwell Museum’s Curator of Public Programs Julián Antonio Estrada (jac123@unm.edu ), or Curator of Ethnology and Lead Exhibit Curator, Lea McChesney (lsmcches@unm.edu).
Click here for our press kit https://maxwellmuseum.unm.edu/news-events/press-kits/coiling-kin-opening-june-6-2026
And here to learn about other exciting exhibition celebrating Pueblo Pottery happening in New Mexico this year https://sarweb.org/news-a-pueblo-pottery-confluence-in-new-mexico-museums/
