Final answer:
The 9th Street Art Exhibition in New York City, held from May 21 to June 10, 1951, featured a totem pole at its entrance. This exhibition marked the rise of the New York School of avant-garde artists and reflected the complex history of displaying totem poles and Indigenous cultural artifacts in museum contexts.
Step-by-step explanation:
The mid-20th century exhibition held in New York City that featured a totem pole near the building's front entrance was the 9th Street Art Exhibition. This historic event took place from May 21 to June 10, 1951, and is noted for being a significant moment for the New York avant-garde art scene, marking the post-war emergence of a collective of artists known as the New York School. The totem pole, a symbol of ancestral history and cultural identity for many Indigenous groups in North America, would have created a striking contrast against the backdrop of emerging modern art that the exhibition was showcasing.
While the event at 9th Street was a seminal art exhibition, it's important to note that the practice of displaying totem poles and other Indigenous artworks in urban spaces or museums, sometimes removed from their cultural context, has a complicated history. Initially, many such artifacts were collected by natural history museums during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a period when there was great interest in the conservation and display of items demonstrating the natural world and various cultures. Over time, however, this practice has been critiqued for conflating Indigenous cultures with flora and fauna, leading some institutions to reevaluate how they represent Indigenous peoples and their artwork.