High exhibit on Olympian Tommie Smith closes this weekend

Fifty years ago Olympic sprinter Tommie Smith raised a fist to the sky and shook the world.

That iconic protest against racial injustice has never stopped reverberating.

This week the issue of sports and protest is back in the news as the nation’s biggest football game takes place in Atlanta.

The NFL continues to answer questions about its treatment of quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose silent protest during the National Anthem inspired similar gestures from other football players and triggered angry criticism from President Donald Trump.

Viewers will debate the place of protest during the game. But none will experience it with the same sense of history as Smith, a Stone Mountain resident who will see the Super Bowl played in his own backyard.

Also in Smith’s backyard is “With Drawn Arms: Glenn Kaino and Tommie Smith,” a multimedia installation at the High Museum of Art that examines Smith’s journey, from gold medal-winning athlete to pariah to role model.

The exhibit remains on display until Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 3.

Los Angeles-based conceptual artist Glenn Kaino created the exhibit during the course of assembling a documentary film on Smith.

His goal, according to Michael Rooks, curator of modern and contemporary art at the High, was to puff some three dimensionality back into the figure of Smith.

“In Glenn’s words, he saw the project as a way of dimensionalizing Tommie and unflattening him from that photo that we all know,” said Rooks.