Michael C. Carlos Museum appoints Curator of the Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora
Photograph of TK Smith by Jonathan Echevarria.
ATLANTA, GA.—
The Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University announces the appointment of TK Smith as its curator of the arts of Africa and the African diaspora. TK is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work encompasses roles as a writer, cultural historian and exhibition curator.
With his expertise in contemporary art, craft tradition, and material culture, TK will bring our vast collection of African objects into present day historical, political, and cultural dialogues happening across the African continent and its diaspora.
“TK is a remarkable communicator who connects people with ideas, knowledge and beauty and makes art accessible,” says Henry S. Kim, associate vice-provost and director of the Carlos Museum. “As a cultural historian and storyteller, he uses art as portal for understanding our histories, revealing ideas that are often undervalued or unexpressed. I look forward to the work he will do in listening and responding to the needs of our communities.”
TK most recently curated Hand to Mouth, an exhibition that explored labor through movement and performative gestures from the work of seven contemporary artists at Stove Works in Chattanooga. From 2022 – 2024, he served as the inaugural Assistant Curator: Art of the African Diaspora at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. In that capacity, TK was invited to serve as a curator-in-residence at the Guest Artist Space Foundation (G.A.S.) in Lagos, Nigeria. As an independent curator, he has organized exhibitions for the Swan Coach House Gallery in Atlanta, the Woodmere Art Museum in Philadelphia, Atlanta Contemporary for the Atlanta Biennial, and the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA. From 2018 – 2020, he served as an inaugural Tina Dunkley Fellow at Clark Atlanta University Art Museum. In that capacity, he curated Zipporah Camille Thompson: Looming Chaos at the Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art at Kennesaw State University in 2020.
TK is a noted writer and has extensive experience in teaching. He has written for Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail, and ART PAPERS, where he is a contributing editor. In 2022, he was awarded an Andy Warhol Writers Grant for short form writing. He served as Monument
Lab’s 2023-2024 writer-in-residence and was invited to be the inaugural writer-in-residence at the Vashon Artist Residency in Washington in 2021. Smith has lectured for several institutions, including the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Saint Louis University, and the Barnes Foundation. Most recently, he was a visiting lecturer at Cornell University where he taught courses on cultural criticism for the Architecture, Art, and Planning Program.
Currently, Smith is a doctoral candidate in the History of American Civilization program at the University of Delaware. He received his Master of Arts in American Studies and his Bachelor of Arts in English and African American Studies, with a certificate in Creative Writing from Saint Louis University.
