Fact Sheet: ​“Glenn Kaino: Bridge” 

Exhibition

“Glenn Kaino: Bridge” 

July 26, 2024-Ongoing

Where  

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Eighth and G streets. N.W.  

Description  

“Bridge” (2013–14), a powerful aerial sculpture by Glenn Kaino, debuts in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Luce Foundation Center since being acquired by the museum in 2022. “Bridge” is composed of 200 golden arms hanging from the ceiling. Each is a casting of the outstretched right arm of Tommie Smith, the American winner of the men’s 200-meter race at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. During the medal ceremony, Smith bowed his head and raised his black-gloved fist in a symbolic act of protest. His gesture was an assertion of Black solidarity in the fight for human rights. Nearly 100 feet long, the sculpture reaches both backward and forward, acting as a bridge through time and space into the present. It serves as a monument to one person’s action and its aftermath, evoking the ways that even small acts can ripple through time and alter the course of history. Kaino, a Los Angeles-based conceptual artist, created “Bridge” as part of an ongoing collaboration with Smith and as a reflection on the power of the athlete’s gesture more than 50 years after it occurred. The installation is organized by Sarah Newman, the museum’s James Dicke Curator of Contemporary Art.

Free Public Programs

• Gallery talk Wednesday, July 31, at 5:30 p.m. with Newman and Damion Thomas, curator of sport at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture
• Film screening of the documentary With Drawn Arms (2020) and discussion with Kaino Wednesday, Oct. 9, at 6:30 p.m.  

SAAM Stories  

Read more about the collaboration between Kaino and Smith in an interview SAAM published on its website. 

Note to editors: Selected high-resolution images for publicity only are available through the museum’s Dropbox account. Email americanartpressoffice@si.edu to request the link.