Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C
Michelle Yee, a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, will lead a gallery talk on Glenn Kaino’s ‘Bridge’ on September 25 as part of the museum’s Art Bites lunchtime series. The program will focus on the monumental sculpture in the museum’s collection and its relationship to Tommie Smith’s historic act of protest at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.
‘Bridge’ is installed in the Luce Foundation Center on the third floor of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. The work remains on view on an ongoing basis, and admission to the museum is free. The Art Bites program is presented as a lunchtime gallery-talk series, with Yee scheduled to discuss the work for visitors gathered in front of the installation.
Created by Los Angeles-based conceptual artist Glenn Kaino in 2013–14, ‘Bridge’ consists of 200 golden arms suspended from the ceiling. Each arm is a casting of Smith’s outstretched right arm, the gesture he raised during the medal ceremony after winning the men’s 200-meter race at the 1968 Olympics. Smith bowed his head and lifted his black-gloved fist in a symbolic assertion of Black solidarity and human rights. American bronze medalist John Carlos echoed the gesture on the same podium.
The museum places Smith’s protest within the turmoil surrounding the United States in 1968, including public unrest over the Vietnam War, racial discrimination and inequality, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. The gesture inspired social causes internationally while profoundly affecting Smith’s own life. Kaino developed the sculpture through an ongoing collaboration with the athlete, reflecting on the meaning and continuing reach of the protest decades after it took place.
Nearly 100 feet long, ‘Bridge’ links past and present through its scale and repetition. The Smithsonian describes the sculpture as reaching backward and forward through time and space, while evoking the way an individual action can produce consequences across generations. Its installation turns a single raised arm into a field of repeated forms, making the gesture both monumental and collective.
The installation is organized by Sarah Newman, the James Dicke Curator of Contemporary Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The museum, together with the Renwick Gallery, is part of the Smithsonian Institution and presents exhibitions, collection displays, research and public programs devoted to American art and craft. The museum is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. in its building at 8th and G Streets NW.
