FEATURE Image: Glenn Kaino, Bridge, 2013. A section of a 100-foot long construction that features 200 gold casts of Tommie Smith’s arm in a raised fist salute that occured in the 1968 Summer Olympics on the medal podium during the national anthem after Smith broke a sprinting record to take gold.
EXPO CHICAGO 2013 is the 2rd annual exhibition of international contemporary and modern art held in Chicago at Navy Pier’s Festival Hall on September 19-22, 2013.
Tommie Smith at Expo Chicago 2013.
Tommie Smith is an American former track and field athlete and American Football League wide receiver. On October 16, 1968, the 24-year-old Smith won the 200-meter sprint finals and gold medal in 19.83 seconds at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
It was the first time the 20-second barrier was officially broken in competitive sports history. Atop the medal podium and with heads bowed, Smith’s Black Power salute with silver-medal-winner John Carlos protested racism and injustice against African-Americans in the United States.
Smith’s raised fist as the national anthem played is seen as one of the most overtly political statements in the history of the modern Olympics and caused memorable admiration and criticism.
In Silent Gesture: The Autobiography of Tommie Smith (Temple University Press, 2008), Smith maintained that the gesture was not solely a “Black Power” salute but a “Human Rights” salute.
In any event, Smith’s raised fist salute in 1968 became one of the most iconic moments in the Olympic games and the history of the Black Power movement.
“1968 Black Power Salute” by urcameras is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.Robert Natkin (American, 1930-2010), Untitled, 1957, McCormick Gallery Chicago & Vallarino Fine Art New York.Hung Liu (American, Chinese, 1948-2021), Da Fa Che II, 2013, mixed media, 82 x 82 in., Nancy Hoffman Gallery, NY.Jack Roth (1927-2004), Metafour II, acrylic on canvas, 57 x 54 inches, 1980, McCormick Gallery, Chicago and Vallarino Fine Art, New York.Bruce Dorow (b. 1959), Black Shape Space, oil on canvas, 38 x 65 inches, 2012-2013. R.S. Johnson Fine Art, Chicago.Patrick Strzelec, American sculptor. Garth Greenan Gallery, Chicago.William T. Kennedy, Warhol Holding Marilyn Acetate 1, executed 1964, 2010. The photograph was made when Warhol wasn’t yet famous but at the center in a shift in the culture of the art world.Aimé Mpane (Congo, born 1968), IC Cont Series, 2011-2013, acrylic and mixed media on wood panel, 12.5 x 12 x 2 in., Haines Gallery, San Francisco.Larry Rivers (American, 1923-2002), Small Drugstore, 13.5.x.15.25 inches, oil on canvas mounted on board, 1959. Techniques of color-field painting, gestural abstraction, and calligraphy come together in a picture that is objective and abstract.Jonathan Boos, LLC, New York.Fernand Léger (1881-1955) – Mother and Child, c. 1949, gouache, signed with initials. R.S. Johnson Fine Art Chicago R.S. Johnson Fine Art, Chicago. Top left: Fernand Léger (1881-1955), Mère et Enfant, 1949, gouache; right: André Lhote (1885-1962), Les Acacias, 1959, oil on canvas. Michele Pred, Targeted, 2012, Vintage hat bag, birth control pills, 24x1x6 inches. Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York. Michele Pred incorporates aspects of contemporary culture and politics in her art. The Berkeley, California, artist uses unconventional materials that serve as cultural artifacts for her conceptual approach.Romare Bearden (American, 1911-1988), Manhattan Suite, 1975, collage and mixed media on board, 24 x 18 inches, Jonathan Boos, LLC.50%. Elizabeth Catlett (American, 1915-2012), Star Gazer, 1997, black marble, 14.5 x 32 x 11 in., signed. Jonathan Boos LLC. Catlett is known for depictions of African-American and Latin American working-class women using simple, solid shapes in wood, stone, bronze or clay.Haines Gallery, San Francisco.Siebren Versteeg (American, b. 1971), Good Times_1081_2003_05_09, 2012, Algorithmically generated archive inkjet output to paper, tape. 92 x 56 inches, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago. The New York-based artist was educated at the SAIC and UIC. Mined digital content is presented as painterly abstractions or monitor displays.Die Galerie, Frankfurt am Main.Long–Bin Chen (Taiwan, born 1964), Edvard Grieg, 28x29x15 inches. New York-based Long-Bin Chen transforms paper products into sculpture. Books are constructed so that relevant subject parts and often titles fit together seamlessly.Mary Ellen Mark, John Belushi “Blues Brothers” Chicago IL, 1979 Gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 in. each, signed dated numbered (verso).Pierre Alechinsky, Le Point du Jour, 1966, oil on canvas, 130×81 cm, signed lower right and signed dated entitled (verso). David Park (1911-1960), Head of Lydia, 25×24 in., oil on canvas. 1953. In the late summer of 1949 David Park rejected abstraction and started the pusruit of objective subjet matter, including the mother of Helen Park Bigelow.
