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

MICHAEL HALSBAND, ANDY WARHOL AND JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT #143 NEW YORK CITY, JULY 10, 1985. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST © MICHAEL HALSBAND

On view from April 5th to August 28th at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris is Basquiat x Warhol. Painting Four Hands, a retrospective of the collaborative works of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. Considered the most important exhibition ever dedicated to this extraordinary collection, Basquiat x Warhol. Painting Four Hands brings together over 300 works and documents, including 80 canvases signed jointly by the two artists.

Between 1984 and 1985, Basquiat and Warhol created about 160 paintings together (hence the four hands reference), including some of the largest works produced during their respective careers. Artist Keith Haring called their collaboration a “conversation occurring through painting, instead of words… two minds merging to create a third distinctive and unique mind.” Read More

FIRST SURFER TINTYPE, LONE SURFER, 8×10, MONTAUK, NEW YORK 2015; BIDART GROUP, 8×10, BIDART, FRANCE; THE FUTURE, 11×14, 2015 SANTA BARBARA, CA.

At The Art Show last month at the Park Avenue Armory in NYC, the work of Joni Sternbach was on view at the Von Lintel Gallery booth. A write up of the show in The New York Times featured a triptych her tintype photographs titled The Women and The Waves. As a fan of surf photography, I hustled over to see the work, and to my delight Sternbach was there as well.

Surfland is an on-going series of tintype portraits of surfers that represent a unique blending of subject matter and photographic technique. Working with a large-format camera, Sternbach has been photographing surfers around the world since 2006 using this antiquated process. Ironically, Sternbach had no intention of photographing surfers – nor does she surf – until they paddled into her frame one day. The project began as an ocean series. Waving them off, she never expected they would become the subject.

Popular in the mid-late 1800’s, a tintype is actually an underexposed negative created on a chemically coated, blackened metal plate in what is called the wet-plate collodion process. When the plate is exposed to light through the camera, an image develops with transparent areas appearing black because of the background. The overall darkness of the image gives the aura of a vintage photograph. Read More

There are currently four must-see sport themed installations and exhibitions on view sure to pique anyone’s interest, sports fan or not. From basketball in Marseille, to football (soccer) in London, to baseball and Title IX in the USA, these shows take an inside look at the most popular sports through a unique set of lenses: design, photography, architecture, and history. Should you be traveling abroad or staying closer to home this summer, be sure to catch these shows before they close!
 
FOOTBALL: DESIGNING THE BEAUTIFUL GAME (above)
The Design Museum
Kensington, London
April 8 – August 29, 2022 (closing soon)

With 2022 marking 150 years of The Football Association in the UK, Football: Designing the Beautiful Game showcases how design has pushed the world’s most popular sport to new limits. Produced in partnership with the National Football Museum in Manchester, the show features over 500 historical objects, films, and interviews with club legacies and such legends as Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pelé), Lionel Messi, Zinedine Zidane, Diego Maradona, and more.

Visitors can look forward to immersive stadium reconstructions and tours of some of the world’s most important football venues which explore how football helped shape communities. This includes destinations such as Wembley, Stamford Bridge and San Siro, alongside future-facing projects from leading industry figures like Herzog & de Meuron, Populous and Zaha Hadid Architects. From design enthusiasts to football fans, the show caters to all. Read More

The 1982 Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters basketball team, winner of the inaugural NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament

 
On view May 13 to September 4 at the New-York Historical Society is Title IX: Activism On and Off the Field, a new exhibition that commemorates the 50th anniversary of Title IX. This groundbreaking legislation that reshaped womens’ sports in America was an addition to the Education Amendments Act of 1972 that prohibited discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal assistance.

Title IX is Best known for its twin flashpoints of sports and sexual harassment. The exhibition traces its evolution through the work of those whose personal and professional experiences with sex discrimination in education and federal government agencies made them advocates for Title IX. There are personal items, photographs, and a re-creation of a campus kiosk advertising Take Back the Night demonstrations over the last 30 years, which in the 70’s became the first worldwide movement to combat sexual violence.
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SOHEI NISHINO | MOUNTAIN LINE, MOUNT FUJI, 2022

Now on view at Michael Hoppen Gallery is the newest mountainscape by Sohei Nishino, Mountain Line, Mount Fuji, 2022. It is a follow up his 2019 work to Mountain Lines, Everest, created with his signature technique. Nishino combines photography, collage, and psychogeography to create large scale experiential prints of urban and natural landscapes, constructed with thousands of images.

Drawing inspiration from 18th century Japanese mapmaking, Nishino uses photographs as geographical representation, but with a subjective point of view. From a distance, his maps are almost abstract. Each work is pieced together with images of both people and places, and it is not until we examine closer that the full experience unfolds. (Details below) Read More

BRONZE ERODED BASKETBALL, 2019

Daniel Arsham’s newest “relic”, Bronze Eroded Basketball, was released last week in a limited edition of 99. Arsham is one of the most prominent and influential contemporary artists, with a cult-like following whose new work garners a buzz similar to a hot sneaker drop — and from a similar demographic. Like all of this artist’s work, this cast bronze sculpture of a regulation size basketball sold out within minutes of its release. Read More

TEA WITH MUHAMMAD ALI, 1965

WATER JUMP, SANDOWN PARK, ESHER, c.1970s

GOALKEEPER JOHN HOLLOWBREAD, WHITE HART LANE, LONDON, 1964

Gerry Cranham: Simply The Best is currently on display at the Michael Hoppen Gallery in London. Now in his 90th year, the work of this British sport photographer defined the genre with pictures that were both intimate and action-packed, capturing the exhilaration and humanity of his sporting subjects.

Over the course of a career which spanned half a century, the range and variety of his sport images cemented Cranham’s reputation as a tireless innovator. Though his reputation rests on his legendary sports images, he also recorded some of the 20th Century’s most dramatic historical and cultural moments, from documenting the funeral of JFK to photographing Steve McQueen at the height of his celebrity. Read More

 

 
On January 25th, Sotheby’s auctioned the only privately owned collection of every Supreme skate deck ever manufactured in the sale “20 Years of Supreme.” Spanning 20 years of production, the archive included all 248 decks created by Supreme from 1998–2018, passionately collected over decades by owner Ryan Fuller. Offered as a single lot, the collection sold for $800,000, purchased by a young Chinese collector named Carson Guo.

This landmark archive interweaves streetwear, luxury, art and skate culture. Established in 1994, Supreme began as a skateboarding and fashion shop in downtown NYC that has grown into a global brand with a massive cult-like following. Supreme started producing their own skateboards in 1998 and have collaborated with the most coveted brands over the last 20 years – most famously with Louis Vuitton. The complete Louis Vuitton Boite skateboard trunk with tool kit, trucks, and wheels was also included in the lot.

Supreme is equally known for their skateboard collaborations with such prominent artists as George Condo, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Richard Prince, KAWS, Marilyn Minter, Nate Lowman, and Takashi Murakami, among others that are part of this collection.
 

CARSON GUO

Guo has not revealed too much about his plans for the collection, only to say they will go on view at a new creative shop and collaboration space he is opening in Vancouver in 2020. While this rare lot may be off the market now, many of these individual skateboard decks are also currently available at our partner site, GC/EDITIONS.

ROW 1: GEORGE CONDO, SHEPARD FAIREY, KEHINDE WILEY, KAWS X KROOKED, KEITH HARING, ANDY WARHOL; ROW 2: MARILYN MINTER, ANDY WARHOL, KENNY SCHARF, DAMIEN HIRST, DAMIEN HIRST, JEFF KOONS; ROW 3: NATE LOWMAN, ANDY WARHOL, KEITH HARING, JULES DE BALINCOURT, JOSE PARLA, GEORGE CONDO

 
Andy Warhol to Keith Haring, Jeff Koons to Damien Hirst, George Condo to Shepard Fairey – many of the most important contemporary artists have turned the skateboard deck into their sporty canvas. The parameters of its shape create a unique frame, contained within are works of art that often reference some of these artists most important pieces.

For many of contemporary artists whose work started on the street, and who are often skateboarders themselves, it’s a way to stay connected to their roots. For the blue chip artists at the top of the contemporary art world, says collector and art advisor Glori Cohen, “the skateboard provides a unique cool factor at a low price point — and it’s a really fun way to collect art!” Many of her clients buy these skateboard decks for their children’s rooms. Created in limited editions, it’s real art their kids can relate to, that’s still collectible too.Check out a few of our favorites below:
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TOP: PALIO DI SIENA, ITALY, 2016; AMERICA’S CUP, SAN FRANCISCO, 2013

Now on view at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery is “Day to Night”, the second exhibition of works on this theme by photographer Stephen Wilkes. The images represent a visual exploration of an iconic location, photographed from daybreak to nightfall, often capturing an historical event from start to finish: Easter Mass at the Vatican in 2016; the Inauguration of President Obama at the U.S. Capital in 2013; and on our Style of Sport beat, the final stage of the Tour de France in Paris in 2016.

At first glance, what is most obvious in these photographs is the light changing as time progresses from day into night. On closer inspection however, which is mandatory, what you see is everything that happened during that time span, seamlessly compressed – literally — into one image. Taken from a single fixed position, Wilkes selects from hundreds of moments captured, putting together all these slivers of time and what occurred within them, into a single image. For his sport photographs, our point of entry, like the Tour de France mentioned, the famous Palio horse race in Siena, or the America’s Cup in San Francisco Bay – we see the start, middle, and finish of the race all in one view.
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Jeremy Koreski photographs surfing, among other outdoor sports, but he doesn’t take pictures in warm sunny locales. It’s cold, wet, and sometimes snowing where he is, but the subjects in his photographs never seem to mind. They’re too busy having fun. Bundled up and in wetsuits — with hoods, booties and gloves – they’re all smiles taking advantage of the natural playground their surroundings have to offer.

Koreski grew up in Tofino, British Columbia, a town on the west coast of Vancouver Island, about a 1½ hour ferry ride from Vancouver. There wasn’t a whole to do there other than watch TV or play outside. Koreski and his friends opted for the latter. Surrounded by water, surfing and fishing were the activities of choice. At 13 he picked up a camera and started shooting, documenting their outdoor adventures. Koreski still calls Vancouver Island home and his work showcases the lifestyle and culture of the Canadian coast and Pacific Northwest. The landscape is the star of his images, given perspective by the subjects in it.
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RUTH ORKIN IN 1947; THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT PHOTOGRAPHED BY ORKIN IN 1939

In 1939, a 17-year old girl living in California decided to embark on a monumental bike trip across the country. The World’s Fair in New York City was her destination. That girl was award winning photojournalist and filmmaker Ruth Orkin (1921-1985).

Orkin grew up in Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s, and at the age of 10, received her first camera, a 39¢ Univex. She began by photographing her friends and teachers at school. Obsessed with traveling after three cross country train trips with her family, she took a job as a teenager at a travel agency in 1937. When a pamphlet for American Youth Hostels arrived in the mail one day at work, offering cheap lodging and cooking facilities for travelers journeying by foot or bicycle, the call for adventure was too great to resist.
 

PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY ORKIN AND PAGE FROM THE SCRAPBOOK SHE MADE DOCUMENTING THE 1939 BIKE TRIP. ALL CAPTIONS HANDWRITTEN BY ORKIN

 
At 16, Orkin took her first Youth Hostel trip to San Francisco, and the following year somehow convinced her parents to let her bicycle across the country. Multiple newspapers carried the story of this 17-year old on a cross country tour of U.S. Youth Hostels. While she had actually hitchhiked from LA to Chicago, and then Chicago to New York – equally adventurous and kind of crazy — Orkin later wrote in her book, A Photo Journal, published in 1981, “The bicycling was done while I was sightseeing in each city: Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Boston. I also biked the smaller distances between the four eastern cities and while hosteling through four New England states. All in all I biked a total of 2000 miles during those four months!”
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