Tommie Smith (center). © Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images.
Glenn Kaino and Tommie Smith – High Museum A half century before NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee, Olympic gold-medal sprinter Tommie Smith raised a gloved fist. His act of protest, and its reverberations over the past 50 years, are explored in ‘With Drawn Arms: Glenn Kaino and Tommie Smith,’ an exhibition organized by the High Museum of Art (Sept. 29, 2018–Jan. 6, 2019).]]>
Source: High Museum of Art
The exhibition, which introduces several new works, is the culmination of a multiyear collaboration between Los Angeles–based conceptual artist Glenn Kaino (American, born 1972) and Smith (American, born 1944), who lives in Stone Mountain, Ga. “With Drawn Arms” will feature sculptural installations and drawings by Kaino and Smith, excerpts from an original documentary about Smith’s life and his collaboration with Kaino (directed by Kaino and Afshin Shahidi), objects from the Tommie Smith Archives, and a series of drawings contributed by students from across the United States. By bridging the past and present, the exhibition powerfully resonates in the current moment of reckoning with racial injustice in America.
“Glenn so poignantly celebrates Tommie’s story through this project, and the artworks and film encourage us to reflect on the power of the individual to effect change. We look forward to bringing the Atlanta community together to commemorate Tommie’s act of bravery and examine the power of protest in our lifetime,” said Rand Suffolk, the High’s Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr., director.
“There may be no other event in the 20th century that so powerfully speaks to our present moment of confrontation with the endemic racism and inequality that persist in society today,” said Michael Rooks, the High’s Wieland Family curator of modern and contemporary art. “The combination of Glenn’s activist art and Tommie’s heroic fortitude and resilience in the face of overwhelming adversity amplifies a young generation’s rising call for social justice.”
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