SFMOMA’s Largest Exhibition “Get in the Game” Opening Day (Oct. 19)

SFMOMA

SFMOMA’s Get in the Game features art + design influenced by the role of sports in our culture.

150 Objects Inspired by Athletes and Key Moments in Sports History

On View in the Museum’s Largest Exhibition to Date – October 19, 2024−February 18, 2025

Sports have a huge presence and pull in contemporary life: the drive to play, compete and win is everywhere, and the urge to cheer our local team and our favorite athlete is irresistible. Artists and designers are likewise drawn to the drama, heartbreak, joy and risk-taking of athletics, inspiring them to tackle new challenges, take on timely topics and reexamine what sports say about our culture. From October 19, 2024−February 18, 2025, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) presents Get in the Game, exploring the powerful—and sometimes contentious—place of athletics in our communities.

Covering 15,000 square feet with 150 compelling artworks and design objects, Get in the Game is SFMOMA’s largest exhibition to date. Curated by Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, SFMOMA’s Helen Hilton Raiser Curator of Architecture and Design; Seph Rodney, independent curator and writer; and Katy Siegel, SFMOMA’s Research Director, Special Program Initiatives, it showcases paintings, sculptures, photographs, video and interactive installations by some of today’s most important artists, together with design breakthroughs in sports gear, gaming and apparel. Viewers will discover the sense of community found in depictions of pickup basketball games, minor league baseball teams, neighborhood swimming clubs or a lineup of fellow surfers. Audiences will also encounter artists and designers inspired by athletes advancing conversations about gender, race and identity, as well as artworks responding to the remarkable achievements of sports figures such as Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Colin Kaepernick, Diana Nyad, Venus Williams and Zinedine Zidane. Woven throughout Get in the Game will be stunning works of contemporary art and design, interactive installations and historical videos that reconsider political and cultural issues through the lens of sports, athleticism, competition and play.

“Creating exhibitions that are responsive to the happenings in our daily life and position art in dialogue with subjects of relevance, meaning and interest to a broad community is core to SFMOMA’s vision,” said Christopher Bedford, SFMOMA’s Helen and Charles Schwab Director. “Get in the Game perfectly encapsulates this drive, exploring the confluence of culture and sports and the many ways in which they influence each other. The exhibition creates space for dynamic conversations about identity, physicality, passion, ambition, resilience and so much more. We welcome the public to experience this unique opportunity to look anew at the inspiring ways that sports, art, design and culture intersect.”

ART INFLUENCED BY SPORTS

Through sports, artists can tell stories of the highs and lows of human experience: adrenaline-fueled passions and agonizing defeats, as well as our relationship with traditions and record-breaking achievements. Highlights of Get in the Game include moving artworks by artist/athletes Matthew Barney, Rosalyn Drexler, Reggie Burrows Hodges, Savanah Leaf, Mario Ayala, Shaun Leonardo and Lucy McRae, who have been influenced by their experiences in sports such as football, volleyball, skateboarding, wrestling, tennis and track. Also among the more than 70 artists featured in the exhibition are Emma Amos, Ernie Barnes, Kevin Beasley, Karla Diaz, Derek Fordjour, Jeffrey Gibson, Michael Jang, Ivan Salcido, Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi, Catherine Opie, Paul Pfeiffer, Cheryl Pope, Robert Pruitt, Ben Sakoguchi, William Scott, Joan Semmel, Gary Simmons, Tabitha Soren and Hank Willis Thomas.

Upending our expectations of both museums and games, viewers will be able to play interactive artworks by contemporary artists: Maurizio Cattelan’s 22-person foosball table, Stadium (1991), and Gabriel Orozco’s Ping Pond Table (1998), a four-way ping-pong table with a square pool in place of a net.

CUTTING-EDGE DESIGN OF SPORTS GEAR AND FASHION

Get in the Game features dozens of innovative designs for sports gear, gaming and fashion, from Formula One racecar steering wheels to a 2022 ensemble from Virgil Abloh’s final Louis Vuitton collection. Fans can appreciate the artistry and unforgettable design of Michael Johnson’s gold running shows and Nike’s original Air Jordan basketball shoes. Amateur athletes can also follow the awe-inspiring design evolution and technological advances of surfboards, tennis racquets and football helmets.

Reflecting the evolving field of play, the exhibition integrates meaningful designs from recent years, such as the Cheetah Xceed prosthetic running leg, developed by biomedical engineer Van Phillips (himself an amputee), and the Refugee Nation Flag, designed by artist Yara Said, a Syrian refugee now based in Amsterdam.

EXHIBITION DESIGN + AUDIENCE EXPERIENCE

Exhibition design by fuseproject, the leading design and innovation firm led by Yves Béhar, bring the visual and emotional exuberance of sports into the museum context and immerse visitors in the thrill of a sporting event. Get in the Game takes over the museum’s entire Floor 7, and fuseproject’s design evokes the feeling of entering a stadium and encourages visitors to discover their own path through the exhibition’s wide range of offerings.

The presentation is organized around five key themes that invite audiences to look at the intersection of visual art, sports and design from multiple perspectives: Mind and Body, Winning and Losing, A Fan’s Life, Breaking Records and Rules and Field of Play. Throughout the exhibition, video and photography of major events in sports history will ground the artworks in a larger context and offer new insights into the role of sports in social change.

To reflect the remarkable range of athletic interests and the ever-changing definition of sports, the exhibition features art and design objects connected to team events, such as soccer, basketball, football and baseball; individual competition, including running, tennis, swimming, gymnastics, figure skating, motorsports and boxing; and less conventional, popular sports, such as skateboarding, surfing, martial arts and video gaming.

BAY AREA WALLS + RELATED EXHIBITIONS

Get in the Game is complemented by six related presentations inspired by sports in different ways, including three single-gallery exhibitions on Floor 2: 

Unity in Skateboarding (August 17, 2024–April 27, 2025), focusing on the history of LGBTQ+, BIPOC and women skateboarders and allies, is guest curated by Jeffrey Cheung and Gabriel Ramirez, artists and founders of Unity, the Oakland-based queer collective that introduces participants to skateboarding and artmaking. When the World Is Watching and Count Me In (both on view August 17, 2024–May 4, 2025) highlight how international competitions—such as the Olympic Games, Paralympic Games, the America’s Cup, World Cup and the Gay Games—together with wider participation in sports by Indigenous, Black, disabled and women athletes, mirror important societal conversations globally.

In addition, SFMOMA has commissioned new installations by cartoonist and writer Gene Luen Yang, painter David Huffman and artist and educator Jenifer K. Wofford for the museum’s Bay Area Walls series, which invites local artists to create site-responsive wall projects. Bay Area Walls: Gene Luen Yang (August 31, 2024–June 2025) features a mural inspired by three basketball legends with a tie to the Bay Area: Fran Belibi, Stephen Curry and Jeremy Lin. Bay Area Walls: David Huffman (October 12, 2024–August 2025) presents the first wall-sized work by Huffman, who has long used basketballs to reference his community and personal history, weaving the imagery into complex and gorgeous abstract paintings. Bay Area Walls: Jenifer K. Wofford (October 12, 2024–September 2025), organized by Tanya Zimbardo, assistant curator of media arts, features a painted mural inspired by Filipina American competitive diver Victoria Manalo Draves (1924–2010), the first Asian American Olympic gold medalist.

ORGANIZATION

Get in the Game is organized by SFMOMA and curated by Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, Helen Hilton Raiser Curator of Architecture and Design, SFMOMA; Seph Rodney, independent curator and writer; and Katy Siegel, Research Director, Special Program Initiatives, SFMOMA.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.