A contentious soccer match ends in fans screaming until they lose their voices. Another devolves into a player collapsing on the turf as they just miss a game-winning goal. Sports move us, both physically and emotionally. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art embodies this impact through their upcoming exhibition, Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture. 

This project will be the museum's most expansive installation on a single subject to date, featuring six sports-related companion exhibitions. Spanning over 15,000 square feet, the exhibition will showcase more than 200 pieces of artwork and design, including paintings, sculptures and interactive multimedia installations.

Visitors will have the opportunity to engage directly with some of the exhibits. 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, invite patrons to play with the art itself. Other installations focus on highlighting design breakthroughs in sports gear, gaming and apparel. Formula One race car steering wheels, an ensemble from Virgil Abloh's final Louis Vuitton collection and original Air Jordans will be displayed alongside models of the latest prosthetics made for athletic performance.

Drawing inspiration from pivotal moments in sports history, artists and designers created pieces that honor icons such as Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Venus Williams and Colin Kaepernick. The exhibition meticulously documents both historical and recent advances in athletics throughout its installations.

Museum director Christopher Bedford shares that Get in the Game aligns with SFMOMA's mission to create exhibitions that respond to recurrent events while examining how art engages with contemporary themes. 

"The exhibition creates space for dynamic conversations about identity, physicality, passion, ambition, resilience, and so much more," Bedford explains.

Organized around five key themes — Mind and Body, Winning and Losing, A Fan's Life, Breaking Records and Rules, and Field of Play — the exhibition explores the nuanced relationship between sports and art.

To complement the exhibition, SFMOMA will release a book of the same name. Get in the Game will feature full-color illustrations and essays from sports legends like Megan Rapinoe and Diana Nyad, as well as thought-provoking pieces on topics such as the role of stadiums in American society and the data analysis revolution in basketball.

Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture will open on October 19 and run through February. To celebrate the launch, SFMOMA will host a free community day on October 20, offering visitors complimentary admission to the exhibition.