SAN JOSE, CA.- The San José Museum of Art is presenting a major exhibition this fall that revisits the now-iconic moment in sports history when Tommie Smith, a young athlete from San José State College (now San José State University), stood on the center podium at the 1968 Olympic awards ceremony with one gloved hand raised. It was October 16 and Smith had just won the gold medal for the 200-meter dash at the Summer Olympics. Leveraging a rapt, global audience, his gesture issued an unsubtle yet silent call to action against international human rights abuses and expressed solidarity with the civil rights movement in the United States. Over fifty years later, Smith shares his story and its ongoing contemporary relevance through an unlikely partnership with Los Angeles-based artist Glenn Kaino in With Drawn Arms: Glenn Kaino and Tommie Smith, which opened at SJMA November 1, 2019 and remains on view through April 5, 2020.
Anchoring SJMA’s own 50th anniversary season, With Drawn Arms traces the echoes of Smith’s gesture through the medium of the message: the photographic news image proliferated endlessly through press wires and print, and today through infinitely expanding digital media. The exhibition includes sculpture, prints, and drawings by Kaino, as well as memorabilia from Smith’s personal collection. A new documentary film by the same name and directed by Kaino and Afshin Shahidi will screen on February, 25, 2020 at the Hammer Theater Center in partnership with San José State University, following its national premiere. The film explores Smith’s history and the impact of his protest, featuring commentary from key contemporary figures including former President of the United States Barack Obama, Congressman John Lewis, and former NFL player and political activist Colin Kaepernick.
The exhibition is organized by Lauren Schell Dickens, senior curator at SJMA who has long had an interest in projects that foreground issues of social justice through unlikely means. A Bay Area native born in San José, Dickens understands the local importance of Smith’s story as well as the historical relevance of “Speed City,” the affectionate nickname San José State’s Olympian-breeding track and field program earned in the 1960s. “The force of Tommie’s physical speed is rivaled only by the power of his silent protest,” asserts Dickens. “What Glenn has done is humanize the person behind this action, allowing our diverse audiences to see themselves as heirs to Tommie’s legacy and understand the influence that one individual can wield.”
The relationship between Smith and Kaino—a Japanese-American conceptual artist known for provocative and uncanny installations that probe tough questions of identity and politics—began several years ago when a friend noticed a copy of the infamous photo taped to the artist’s monitor. Perhaps drawing a connection between Kaino’s ongoing interests in social protest, the friend offered an introduction to Smith, whom he had known as a coach from his college days. Kaino was ecstatic to meet the flesh and blood that had produced such a powerful image, immediately homing in on its contemporary relevance and convincing Smith to join him in reexamining its narrative potential.
The centerpiece of With Drawn Arms is Bridge (2013), a 100-foot-long monumental installation composed of casts of Smith’s arm raised in salute on the Olympic podium. Bridge mirrors the road of the civil rights movement and subsequent struggles for justice, a path not easy or straight, but rising in victory and descending in defeat along the journey. It serves as a metaphoric bridge connecting activists of the past like Smith with others present and future. Thus, Smith and Kaino liken their collaboration to a metaphorical ‘passing of the baton’— a call to younger generations that personal gestures of activism can be vigorous tools in catalyzing action. In amplifying Smith’s protest, which resulted in a ban from the Olympic Games, With Drawn Arms contends the latent potency of symbolism. Part of their collaboration coalesced around a series of drawing workshops—or drawing rallies—with high schools, where students learned the story of Smith’s silent protest by re-drawing scenes from the 1968 Olympics. A selection of these works on paper are featured alongside Kaino’s own representations of the race and medal ceremony.
With Drawn Arms is as much an invitation to participate as it is an opportunity for historical reflection. Extending the “passing the baton” metaphor, SJMA will present a series of workshop-based public programs, which aim to offer specific tools, resources and actions individuals may take to effect change across a range of relevant issues, from immigrant advocacy to cyber activism.
Glenn Kaino (b. 1972, Los Angeles) received his BFA from the University of California, Irvine, in 1993, and his MFA from the University of California, San Diego, in 1996. Kaino draws on his undergraduate education in computer science and formal training as a sculptor to make work that spans a wide range of media and creative activity. He engineers large-scale installations and site- or situation-specific sculptural works that are infused with sociopolitical commentary. In 2012, he was selected by the U.S. Department of State to represent America in the 13th International Cairo Biennale, and was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the 12th Lyon Biennial in Lyon, France; and Prospect 3 in New Orleans.
Tommie Smith (b. 1944, Clarksville, Texas) is a sprinter, civil rights activist, author, speaker, and scholar. While attending SJSU on an athletic scholarship, Smith excelled on one of the most competitive teams in collegiate sprinting history and became an icon of the civil rights movement at the 1968 Olympics. Since retiring from sprinting, Smith has taught sociology at Oberlin College and has been an active public speaker. He now lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia.
