Curator, Writer, Cultural Historian

TK Smith is a curator, writer, and cultural historian. His interdisciplinary research engages materiality to analyze art, identity, and culture. As a public scholar, he serves as a conduit between artists, ideas, and communities to produce thoughtful exhibitions, publications, and programs. He currently works as Curator, Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora, at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. Smith’s writing has been published in exhibition catalogues, academic journals, and periodicals, including Art Papers where he is a contributing editor. In 2022, he was awarded an Andy Warhol Writers Grant and in 2024 he was awarded a Leo and Dorothea Rabkin Prize. He has been a visiting lecturer at numerous academic and cultural institutions, including Cornell University, where he taught undergraduate courses on cultural criticism. Smith is a doctoral candidate in the History of American Civilization program at the University of Delaware, where he is completing his dissertation Granite, Power, and Piss: The Transformation of a Confederate Symbol.

Press, Interviews, Podcasts…

Quoted, Lauren Puckett-Pope’s, “Danielle Deadwyler Honors Black and Trans Women and Nonbinary Folks,” Elle Magazine

Podcast, “2024 Rabkin Prize Winner TK Smith,” Rabkin Interviews

Announcement, “TK Smith Joins Michael C. Carlos Museum as Curator…” Culture Type

Quoted, Tess Korobkin’s "Monumental Absense: Augusta Savage's Unbuilt Monuments, 1931- 1943," American Art journal

Interview, “Art UnPhiltered: TK Smith and Grace Busser,” ICA Philadelphia Student Board

Podcast, “Creating the Context with Curator and Writer TK Smith,” Studio Noize Podcast Ep 133