Convening features live events with artists, athletes, journalists, and cultural leaders and takes place alongside Get in the Game, an exhibition exploring the intersection of athletics, creativity, and cultural identity. March 19 & 20, 2026. Tickets available here.
(MIAMI, FL — March 2, 2026) — GAME TIME, a new cultural platform exploring the convergence of art and sports, will debut at Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) on March 19 and 20, 2026, during the opening weekend of Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture. The inaugural edition, GAME TIME: Session 1—Dialogues on Art, Sports, and Headlines, unites artists, athletes, curators, poets, journalists, and cultural icons for electrifying conversations, performances, screenings, and live events.
Tickets can be purchased here, and include access to the museum’s galleries. For press and media access, please reach out to gametime@culturalcounsel.com.
Coinciding with the Miami Open and leading up to major world sporting events in South Florida, including Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix and the FIFA World Cup, GAME TIME is the first major museum-led conference examining cultural production in and around sports. By inviting athletes and artists to share the stage, GAME TIME provides a space for cultural institutions to seriously consider, explore, and investigate the intersection of art and sports in ways that extend beyond the aesthetics of athletics.
GAME TIME debuts alongside Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture, an exhibition featuring over 100 artworks across painting, sculpture, photography, video, mixed media, and historic memorabilia that explore the dynamic interplay between athletic performance, artistic expression, and cultural identity. First organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and previously presented at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, PAMM’s presentation of Get in the Game is recontextualized in Miami, a global crossroads where sports and culture shape everyday life.
Get in the Game features artists such as Andrea Bowers, Carling Jackson, Lee Moriarty, Catherine Opie, Gabriel Orozco, Cheryl Pope, Tabitha Soren, and Hank Willis Thomas, and incorporates works from PAMM’s permanent collection, including a never-before-seen basketball hoop made of hair by Hugh Hayden and drawings by LeRoy Neiman from his work with the Miami Dolphins.
GAME TIME is incubated by curator and creative director Adam Abdalla in collaboration with PAMM, and supported by Knight Foundation, LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation, Cultural Counsel, Miami Design District, and Commissioner.
GAME TIME: Session 1—Dialogues on Art, Sports, and Headlines
THURSDAY, MARCH 19
From the Olympics to the World Cup: Mediating Sports Journalism and the Role of the Artist on the World’s Stage
1–2:30pm
Sports media is evolving rapidly—as are the ways major sporting events shape both culture and coverage. While Miami prepares for the FIFA World Cup this summer, leading journalists, photographers, artists, and media-makers who immortalize what happens on the field will reflect on their practices, the spectacle of sports, and the power of sports storytelling today.
Featuring Hank Willis Thomas (Artist, Get in the Game), Carling Jackson (Olympic Artist), Isaiah Smalls (Founder, The 44 Percent; Reporter, The Miami Herald), Jake Troyli (Artist, Get in the Game), and Franklin Sirmans (Sandra and Tony Tamer Director, PAMM).
Sports and Society: Cultural Production in Sports
3–4:30pm
As global sporting events reshape cities, institutions, and cultural production, what role can art play? This conversation explores the platforms, commissions, and institutional initiatives connecting contemporary art and athletics, offering a look at how these collaborations take shape behind the scenes.
Featuring Tabitha Soren (Artist, Get in the Game), Nora Halpern (Executive Director, Cultural Olympiad, LA28), and Summer Wheat (Commissioned Artist, Kansas City Chiefs).
Playing Field to Museum Gallery
5–6:30pm
As athletes shape culture on and off the field, how does their identity and influence extend into creative spaces? This conversation explores the evolving relationship between sports and contemporary art, considering how cultural leadership, patronage, and creative inspiration take hold across arenas and institutions.
Featuring Franklin Sirmans (Sandra and Tony Tamer Director, PAMM), Desmond Howard (Sportscaster; Former NFL Player; Super Bowl XXXI MVP; 1991 Heisman Trophy winner), and Dr. Damion L. Thomas (Supervisory Museum Curator of Professional Sports, Amateur Sports, and Leisure Activities, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History).
Readings
6–6:30pm
Presented in partnership with the O, Miami Poetry Festival, GAME TIME presents readings by nationally renowned poet, essayist, and MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient Hanif Abdurraqib, reciting from his book There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, and actor and producer Vincent Piazza, who will read excerpts from The Boxer by Gabriele Tinti.
On March 10, O, Miami and the Miami VIS for Poetics of the Play Call will present a poetry workshop followed by access to see the Miami Heat play the Washington Wizards. This project celebrates the linguistic skill, wit and performance of broadcasters and sports analysts. Each ticket includes access to a courtside poetry workshop at the Kaseya Center and a ticket to see the Miami Heat play the Washington Wizards. Poems developed during this workshop will be handed over to the Heat broadcast team who will be challenged with integrating these community compositions into live broadcast during the month of April. More information and tickets can be found here. The project is presented by Najja Moon and Jaki Goldner.
Film Screening: US Premiere of On the Line
7–9pm
Shot over the course of ten years, On the Line follows the careers of three professional fighters—Will “Power” Rosinsky, Danny “The Miracle Man” Jacobs, and Patrick “All” Day—as they strive to become world champions in one of the most unforgiving of all sports. Set against the gritty backdrop of New York City, with its fabled boxing history and culture, the film follows the trio from their early days as standouts on the amateur scene through the unrelenting climb up the professional ranks.
GAME TIME Reception
9–11pm
In celebration of GAME TIME, join PAMM for drinks and music on the museum’s waterfront terrace. More information to come.
FRIDAY, MARCH 20
Art & Wrestling
11:30am–12:30pm
Professional wrestling blurs the lines between performance art, athletics, and camp. From wrestlers with artistic practices to exhibitions that capture the sport’s larger-than-life energy, this conversation explores the growing exchange between contemporary art and wrestling. Artists, wrestlers, and curators come together to reflect on creative life inside and outside the ring while previewing the upcoming exhibition House Show: Power, Spectacle, and Pro Wrestling at the Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg.
Featuring Lee Moriarty (Professional Wrestler; Artist, Get in the Game), Thekla Kaischauri (Professional Wrestler; Artist, House Show, MFA St. Petersburg), Shaun Leonardo (Artist, Get in the Game; Executive Director, Socrates Sculpture Park), and Adam Abdalla (Curator and Creative Director; Founder, Cultural Counsel and Orange Crush).
Basketball: The Next World’s Game?
2–3:30pm
From neighborhood courts to the global stage, basketball has inspired creativity and shaped culture for decades. Join some of today’s leading cultural critics, poets, and artists as they reflect on the game’s influence and cultural footprint, following an introduction by Dejha Carrington (Co-Founder, Commissioner). Works in the Get in the Game exhibition, alongside projects that merge basketball with poetry, performance, and global expression, explore how its influence will continue to grow in the years ahead.
Featuring Hanif Abdurraqib (Poet; Cultural Critic), Felandus Thames (Artist, Get in the Game), Alexandre Arrechea (Artist, Get in the Game), Najja Moon (Artist; General Manager and Co-founder, The Miami VIS), and Kelefa Sanneh (Staff Writer, The New Yorker).
Boxing
4–5pm
GAME TIME wraps up with a knockout look at boxing in contemporary art and on the screen, with an introduction by Alexandra Cunningham Cameron (Curator of Contemporary Design, Hintz Secretarial Scholar, Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum) reading an excerpt from Joyce Carol Oates’ On Boxing. Curators, artists, and cultural critics explore the sport’s visual language, narrative power, and its continued impact in both film and television.
Featuring Paul Farber (Director and Co-Founder, Monument Lab; Curator, Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments, Philadelphia Art Museum), Francesco Saviano (Director, On the Line), Cheryl Pope (Artist, Get in the Game), and Travis Vogan (Author, The Boxing Film: A Cultural and Transmedia History and LeRoy Neiman: The Life of America’s Most Beloved and Belittled Artist).
Sunset Flip Exhibition Reception
7–9pm | Miami Design District (140 NE 39th Street, Suite 203)
Celebrate the opening of Sunset Flip, an exhibition curated by Adam Abdalla in partnership with Nina Johnson featuring professional wrestlers and artists Lee Moriarty, Ring of Honor Champion, and Thekla Kaischauri, All Elite Wrestling Women’s World Champion, in the Miami Design District. On view from March 19–29, Sunset Flip features eight works, including three never-before-seen tennis paintings by Moriarty on the occasion of the Miami Open, and precedes the upcoming group exhibition House Show: Power, Spectacle, and Pro Wrestling at MFA St. Petersburg, also co-curated by Abdalla. To RSVP, email gametime@culturalcounsel.com.
ABOUT PAMM
Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), led by Sandra and Tony Tamer Director Franklin Sirmans, promotes artistic expression and the exchange of ideas, advancing public knowledge and appreciation of art, architecture, and design, and reflecting the diverse community of its pivotal geographic location at the crossroads of the Americas. The 41-year-old South Florida institution, formerly known as Miami Art Museum (MAM), opened a new building, designed by world-renowned architects Herzog & de Meuron, on December 4, 2013 in Downtown Miami’s Maurice A. Ferré Park. The facility is a state-of-the-art model for sustainable museum design and progressive programming and features 200,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor program space with flexible galleries; shaded outdoor verandas; a waterfront restaurant and bar; a museum shop; and an education center with a library, media lab, and classroom spaces. ### Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is Sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture. Support is provided by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners. Additional support is provided by the City of Miami and the Miami OMNI Community Redevelopment Agency (OMNI CRA). Pérez Art Museum Miami is an accessible facility. All contents ©Pérez Art Museum Miami. All rights reserved.
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