12-08-2025
Museum Exhibition Uses The Art Of Sports To Attract Visitors
Gabriel Orozco's 1998 Ping Pond Table—a ping pong table in the shape of a lotus flower with water lillies and a pond instead of a net—can be played by museum goers. Matthew Millman (courtesy of SFMOMA)
An exhibition aimed at attracting sports fans to an art museum is now going on the road to other museums.
SFMOMA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, organized the exhibit, Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture ,' and presented it at its museum last fall through Feb. 18, 2025. The exhibit heads next month to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas and will be at the Pérez Art Museum Miami in Florida March-September 2026.
SFMOMA marketed the exhibit by saying it's art about, and created by, athletes and an opportunity to play on a 22-person foosball table and other artworks.
'At its heart, Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture offers a collection of stories that show how sports impacts our culture and our psyches,' SFMOMA says. 'They're the type of stories that fuel our collective passion for 'the game.''
From the Olympics to the local recreation league, SFMOMA says, the exhibition enables museum goers to 'experience how some of our most iconic images have been formed and unforgettable human stories have played out in the world of sports.'
Viewers of the exhibition, according to the Crystal Bridges Museum, can discover the depth of swimmer Diana Nyad's determination 'through an unexpected portrait angle'; feel the pressure faced by Billie Jean King through a reenactment of her legendary Battle of the Sexes tennis match against Bobby Riggs, and celebrate Scottie Pippen's legacy as an NBA superstar 'in lustrous ceramic.'
The exhibition "Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture" intrigues visitors at San Francisco's art museum. Matthew Millman (courtesy of SFMOMA)
The exhibition spawned a 169-page book, Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture , distributed by Simon & Schuster. Soccer great Megan Rapinoe wrote the forward to the book, and illustrations were done by surfer AJ Dungo, who illustrated the 2019 graphic novel In Waves .
At Crystal Bridges Museum, the exhibition will present more than 150 sports-related pieces, inviting visitors to 'experience moments of joy, connection and personal resonance,' museum officials say. The pieces will encourage 'reflection on well-being, mindful action, physical activity and mental health awareness.'
Artists and athletes share a 'rich, creative expression,' the officials say, and the exhibition calls on visitors to 'get in the game and discover interconnections between sports, art and contemporary culture.'
The exhibition, which is sponsored by Bank of America, begins Sept. 13 and runs through Jan. 26, 2026. Admission is $15 or free for museum members and youths age 18 and under. On Sept. 11, the museum will host an opening lecture by Austen Barron Bailly, the museum's chief curator, and a conversation with soccer great Mia Hamm, a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
Founded by philanthropist Alice Walton, Crystal Bridges is a nonprofit charitable organization. It opened in 2011 and had nearly 785,00 annual visitors in 2023.
