The US National Archives, Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C., 08/28/1963 (The Commons on Flickr)

Peace, fragility, quandry, restraint

In this artwork by Yoko Ono, a nail protrudes from a steel plate, and a hammer made of hollow glass hangs alongside, attached with a chain. The objects come into context when the artwork's title is considered: Painting to Hammer a Nail In. By considering Ono's instruction to hammer the solid steel nail with the fragile glass implement, the viewer conceptually completes the impossible action. Equipped with only a tool made of hollow glass, how are we to hammer this nail? If force is not the way, how do we effect change? The enigma in this artwork can be seen as humorous, tragic, absurd, beautiful—or possibly all these ways at once. 

Ono and Dr. King are both figures of the 60s who sought to achieve social change through nonviolent means. Ono did so as an artist and King did so as a preacher and leader in the Civil Rights Movement. Ono and King demonstrate a remarkable ability to be authentically invested in real-world conflicts while maintaining a sincere hope for world peace.

"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue..." (excerpt from King's Letter from A Birmingham Jail)

Belonging, identity, confrontation, reconciliation

Gary Simmons takes familiar items such as chalkboards, running shoes, or in this case, bathrobes, and gives them new meaning, often using the power of words to make us think. By doing so, he addresses issues of race and the feeling of being on the outside looking in.

At first glance, the cozy-looking robes in this work look like the one you might have at home or the kind worn by professional boxers, but the addition of text shows that Simmons had more in mind. The opposing labels “Us” and “Them” embroidered in gold lettering on the back of each challenge us to think about who each garment may belong to and which one we might choose to wear. Or, after looking at those two short words, we may get a powerful feeling of not being included at all. Could the robes imply a hope for cleansing—washing away destructive categories in the interest of reconciliation?

Meditation, spirituality, abstraction, visceral

Mark Rothko made this painting shortly after completing a commission to create a series of paintings for a Catholic chapel in Houston, Texas. It is intended to engender reflection and introspection on the part of the viewer—a prompt, perhaps, for meditating on issues beyond the terrestrial. Could Rothko's abstraction suggest the inexplicable nature of a spiritual journey or faith, or the desire to access another plane?

One could find harmonious threads between Rothko's work and King's thoughtful actions informed by deep meditation, personal faith, and trust in his fellow citizens to act in the name of equality and love. Rothko painted No. 2 during King's lifetime; the same year King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Here is an audio clip of former Walker curator Joan Rothfuss discussing Mark Rothko's No. 2.

Re-telling, questioning histories, grappling, empower

In this series of prints the artist Kara Walker has appropriated illustrations from the publication Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War and added silhoeutte figures as a means to altering the story being told. Walker is known for her silhouette figures which depict stereotypical images of African-Americans and people implicated in slavery in the United States. Her cast of characters is most often located in the antebellum south and engaged in gruesome, fantastical vignettes.

Walker's pieces engage with black identity and question accepted/written history, asking us to think about how and where we learn about the past. She's using her position as an artist to rebut a unified or closed narrative around slavery. Walker, in a sense, offers an act of passive resistance—challenging the unjustice of racial inequality through a nonviolent but powerful medium.

For a definition of passive resistance, visit the Glossary of Nonviolence on the King Center website and scroll down to the term. Link: http://www.thekingcenter.org/glossary-nonviolence

Fear, social transformation, action, endurance

This poster represents an action (a kind of artwork that is performed) by artist Joseph Beuys titled Coyote: I Like America and America Likes Me. In Coyote, Beuys came to America, had himself wrapped in felt, and rushed by ambulance to René Block Gallery in Soho, New York where he spent three days in a room with a live coyote. At first, Beuys used the large sheet of felt to shield his body from the animal, but over the course of days, a relationship emerged as the two beings regarded and interacted with one another.

Both Beuys and King were active in the 60s and lived lives dedicated to their ideals, even when choosing to do so precluded the possibility of an “ordinary life” or demanded significant sacrifices. Joseph Beuys and Martin Luther King, Jr. lived through a time of many fears—many legitimate and grave fears brought on by social upheaval and political strife. Beuys’ artistic response was based upon his profound hope to heal and reinvigorate society. His sculptures, performances, lectures, and political activism were all part of a grand, enormous goal: the transformation of Western culture into a more peaceful, democratic, and positive system. (citation: Walker magazine, January/February 2009) King’s hardships included jail, threats on his life, and eventually his tragic assassination. But throughout this context, King overcame fear to lead with faith and serve with wisdom. Beuys’ Coyote parallels King’s life in that it demonstrates endurance, remarkably strong conviction, and human courage.

Faith, commitment, action, collectivity

Like Beuys' Coyote, this work by Francis Alÿs is also action-based. We experience the artwork as a story told through video recordings, drawings, and relics. The story's essence is even told in the title iteself, When Faith Moves Mountains. The saying that "faith moves mountains" is a common figure of speech. But in this artwork, Alÿs consdiers the phrase in a literal sense. He located a sand dune in Meixco, organized hundreds of local residents, equipped these volunteers with shovels, and orchestrated a march across the cone-shaped mountain. Translated from Spanish, here is a quote from a volunteer participant: "It was weird ... trying to get a straight line to move across a cone. But a group of people, on the base of faith, can do things that otherwise would be impossible."

One readily sees parallels between this work of art and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life work and leadership. Both King and Alÿs challenge our assumptions about what is possible and what is impossible. They inspire us not only to work together against adversity, but to see profound meaning in moments when many work as one. Both King's teachings and Alÿs' action describe faith as a motive force, a unifying element, and the foundation of human strivings.