Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture

Get in the Game unfolds the many ways that sports shape culture, bringing people together in shared emotional and physical experiences and offering a platform for conversations about gender, race, money, and the human body, as well as the drive to compete and to win.

Sports serve as a major driver for artistic and technological innovation, community building, and debates about social and cultural priorities and norms. Produced in conjunction with the eponymous wide-ranging exhibition opening at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in fall 2024, Get in the Game offers an expansive view of the areas of contemporary culture where sports and art overlap to reveal beauty, power, emotion, and what makes us human. 

The book’s graphic-novel visual style brings together an array of voices and perspectives, featuring a foreword by activist, advocate, and two-time FIFA World Cup gold medalist Megan Rapinoe; nine artist/athlete dialogues; a reprinted poem by Natalie Diaz; and the following essays: Jay Caspian Kang on youth sports, Frank A. Guridy on the stadium and its role in American cities, Sara Hendren on goalball and the history of adaptive sports, Theresa Runstedtler on race and mental health in sports, Bruce Schoenfeld on the data analysis revolution in baseball, and Seph Rodney on the competitive drive. 

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The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in the United States and a thriving cultural center for the Bay Area. The museum's collection spans seven gallery floors and encompasses various forms of art, including painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, design, and media arts. SFMoMA believes the art of our time is vital and that art and the creative process can open minds and help build a better world. 

Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher is Helen Hilton Raiser Curator of Architecture and Design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She executed several curatorial projects and has published significant essays on the practices of A. Quincy Jones, Ewan Gibbs, Tobias Wong, and Lebbeus Woods. Since 2010, she has been building SFMOMA’s Architecture and Design collection with an emphasis on experimental works of design since 1980. Recent acquisitions include seminal works by Neri Oxman, Ant Farm, Neil Denari, Nathalie du Pasquier, Iwan Baan, Nacho Carbonell and Mathieu Lehanneur.

Seph Rodney is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and is featured on the podcast “The American Age.” His book, The Personalization of the Museum Visit, was published by Routledge in 2019. He is a former senior critic and opinion editor for Hyperallergic, and has also written for CNN, NBC Universal, and American Craft Magazine. He has recently been awarded the Rabkin Arts Journalism Prize (2020) and an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant (2022).

Katy Siegel is Research Director, Special Program Initiatives, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Siegel’s scholarly and curatorial interests are focused on the relationship between

material art-making and social history. Siegel serves on the advisory committee for the African American Archive Initiative at the Getty Research Institute, is contributing editor at Artforum and a member of the editorial board at The Brooklyn Rail.

AJ Dungo is an American surfer and illustrator known for his 2019 graphic novel In Waves. He has worked with great people at Nike, Nobrow, The New York Times, Esquire, Narratively, Vissla, Skechers, etc. His work has been recognized by American Illustration, Society of Illustrators, and AD&D. Originally from Fort Meyers, he currently lives in Los Angeles.

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Hardcover, $24.95, 168 pages, 6.75 x 9 inches, ISBN: 978-1962098038