In 2025, Takashi Murakami reimagined Los Angeles Dodgers merchandise with a collection featuring his unmistakable smiling flowers, vibrant palette, and Japanese katakana lettering. Released in tandem with the team’s World Series championship, the collaboration blurred the line between licensed apparel and collectible artwork—the familiar jersey became a wearable extension of Murakami’s artistic practice.
The collaboration arrived with sports merchandise having already moved beyond souvenirs. Jerseys, sneakers, and collectibles have become cultural objects, carrying the visual language of contemporary artists into stadiums, streets, and secondary markets. Long before artists began designing objects associated with fandom, athletes were already subjects of artistic inquiry. Sports have offered artists a language for exploring movement, identity, celebrity, competition, and cultural memory. Today, artists are not only depicting sports; they are shaping the objects through which sports culture is experienced. [...]
Chicago-born artist Julian Gaines’s relationship with sports began long before his career as an artist. A former collegiate athlete, Gaines turned toward art after an injury redirected his path, finding a creative expression rooted in identity, Black ephemera, and sports culture. His work explores the visual and cultural connections between athletics and everyday life, including footwear collaborations with Nike.
“What I started to realize was, art propels athletics,” Gaines says. “Aesthetics drive an athlete. We always play better and feel better when we look better.” And the commonalities don’t end there. “There’s freedom or creativity that is quite prevalent within both art and athletics,” he says. “The discipline required in athletics is similar to the discipline required in art.”
