Glenn Kaino - With Drawn Arms

Glenn Kaino
With Drawn Arms
November 1, 2019–April 5, 2020

With Drawn Arms: Glenn Kaino and Tommie Smith 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. Smith had just won the gold medal for the 200-meter dash. 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 US. Over 50 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.

The exhibition traces the echoes of Smith’s gesture through the medium of the message: the photographic news image proliferated endlessly through press, 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 screens on February, 25, 2020 at the Hammer Theater Center in partnership with San José State University. The film explores Smith’s history and the impact of his protest, featuring a range of 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 centerpeice of the exhibition 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. Part of their collaboration coalesced around a series of drawing workshops—or drawing rallies—with high schools. A selection of these works are featured alongside Kaino’s own representations of the race and medal ceremony.

Extending the “passing the baton” metaphor, SJMA presents a series of workshop-based public programs, which offer specific tools, resources, and actions individuals may take to effect change across a range of relevant issues, from immigrant advocacy to cyber activism.

With Drawn Arms is also complemented by Speed City: From Civil Rights to Black Power, an archival exhibition organized by History San José.

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.

The exhibition is organized by Lauren Schell Dickens, senior curator.