STYLE of SPORT | Gear & Apparel Curated for the Stylish Sports Enthusiast

SAM MCKINNISS, AMERIQUEST FIELD IN ARLINGTON, TX, SEPT. 3, 2006, 2022

Now on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture. The exhibition explores the powerful influence of sport in our culture, and is the museum’s most expansive presentation dedicated to a subject with more than 200 artworks that include paintings, sculptures, photographs, design objects — together with sports gear, gaming and apparel — by some of today’s most influential artists.

The exhibition is organized around five key themes that 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. 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.
 

CLOCKWISE TOP LEFT: GABRIEL OROZCO, PING POND TABLE, 1998; MAURIZIO CATTELAN, STADIUM, 1991; HANK WILLIS THOMAS, GUERNICA, 2016; HOLLY BASS, NWBA (JORDAN) 2012; CATHERINE OPIE, DIANA, 2012; JENIFER K WOFFORD, VMD, 2024

Woven throughout Get in the Game are interactive installations and historical videos that reconsider political and cultural issues through the lens of sports, athleticism, competition, and play. Viewers will encounter artists and designers inspired by athletes advancing conversations about gender, race, and identity, as well as artworks that highlight the remarkable achievements of sports figures such as Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Colin Kaepernick, Diana Nyad, Venus Williams and Zinedine Zidane. Read More

CLOCKWISE TOP LEFT: SAMUEL FOSSO, MUHAMMAD ALI, ST SEBASTIEN, FROM AFRICAN SPIRITS SERIES, 2008, COLLECTION OF ISABEL STAINOW WILCOX, COURTESY JEAN MARC PATRAS, PARIS; JARED MCGRIFF, THE PRACTICE OF SELF PROTECTION AT ALL TIMES, 2023, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND SPINELLO PROJECTS; DANIEL ARSHAM, BLUE CALCITE BOXING SET, 2016, COLLECTION OF LARRY WARSH, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND PERROTIN, PHOTO: GUILLAUME ZICCARELLI; CHASE HALL, CHAMPION, 2023, ©CHASE HALL, PHOTO: JEFF MCLANE, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND DAVID KORDANSKY GALLERY

Opening at the Norton Museum of Art on October 26, 2024 is Strike Fast, Dance Lightly: Artists on Boxing. The exhibition will be the largest comprehensive survey of artistic representation of boxing in more than 20 years, and features paintings, videos, sculptures, and works on paper by artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Edward Hopper, Ed Ruscha, Alison Saar, Derrick Adams, Hernan Bas, Katherine Bradford, and many more.

Spanning from the 1870’s through the present day, the Norton’s one of a kind presentation will illuminate the connections between boxing and society, while underscoring the rich history of the centuries old sport and its participants through all its complexities. The exhibition will explore the global and cultural impact of the sport with themes relating to the body, race and culture, sexuality, and the artist as boxer. Read More

Corinne Vionnet, From the series “Paris Paris Paris”, Eiffel, 2022

As the Olympics continue in the most iconic venues around Paris, Corinne Vionnet has just completed the latest series in her ongoing Photo Opportunities focusing on re-imagined images of Paris. An online exhibition of the work can be viewed August 5- September 6, 2024 at Danziger Gallery. 

Beginning in 2004, before many other contemporary artists began layering jpegs pulled from the internet, what struck and interested Vionnet was that when tourists went to a popular travel destination they often tried to recreate picture they had already seen, one in the collective imagination, rather than seeing it freshly through their own eyes. Read More

ED RUSCHA, POOL #2, from the Pools Series, 1968/1997 (Courtesy:the artist and Gagosian)

 
Now on view at The FLAG Art Foundation is The Swimmer, an expansive group exhibition inspired by John Cheever’s 1964 short story of the same name. Artists include Henni Alftan, Leonard Baby, Conrad Bakker, Burt Barr, Dike Blair, Martin Boyce, Katherine Bradford, Vija Celmins, Zoe Crosher, Nancy Diamond, Elmgreen & Dragset, Tony Feher, Robert Gober, Wayne Gonzalez, Jim Hodges, Reggie Burrows Hodges, Ludovic Nkoth, Amy Park, Jack Pierson, Alessandro Raho, Calida Rawles, Ed Ruscha, Melanie Schiff, Cindy Sherman, Cynthia Talmadge, Deanna Templeton, Paul Thek, Stephen Truax.

Published in The New Yorker in the wake of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, The Swimmer is emblematic of mid-century America’s changing perception of its own relationship to class, idealism, and failure, evergreen issues as relevant today as sixty years ago. The film based on the book was released in 1968, starring Burt Lancaster as Cheever’s protagonist, Neddy Merrill, who embarks on the novel adventure to swim home by way of his affluent neighbor’s swimming pools. Read More

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: HORNES NEST, 2016, ARTO SAARI; RAY BARBEE, POOLTOWN, 2012, ARTO SAARI; RUNE GLIFBERG, 2015, ARTO SAARI

Now on view through September 2024 at the Aalto2 Museum Centre in Jyväskylä, Finland is The Pool – The Origin of Pool Skateboarding, a series of four exhibitions that explore the pool design of legendary Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, and its intersection with international skateboarding culture, as well as rap and hip-hop culture.

Three exhibitions focus on skateboarding, and the theme of the kidney-shaped design of the swimming pool at Aalto’s Villa Mairea that influenced Southern California pool design and skateboard culture. The fourth exhibition delves into the history of Finnish rap and the significant role of Central Finland in shaping the nation’s hip-hop culture.

Aalto2 Museum Centre is a unique meeting place of architecture, design and cultural heritage in the heart of Central Finland, and fulfills Alvar Aalto’s desire to create a forum to bring together a variety of art forms. It combines two buildings designed by Aalto: the Museum of Central Finland and the Alvar Aalto Museum. Read More