Art of the Game: 23 Artists Turn the World Cup Into a Public Art Trail Across NYC and NJ

When the World Cup kicks off this summer, it won't be the only thing drawing crowds outdoors across New York and New Jersey. Twenty-three monumental soccer ball sculptures, each one reimagined by a different artist, have landed in plazas, parks, waterfronts, and museum forecourts across all five boroughs and neighboring New Jersey — turning a five-borough radius into an open-air gallery timed to the tournament.

The project, called Art of the Game, comes from ARTS 14C, a Jersey City-based nonprofit focused on expanding access to the arts. It was produced in partnership with the New York New Jersey Host Committee for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and it's on view from June 11 through Labor Day weekend.

The Sculptures Themselves

Each piece starts from the same base structure: a steel interior frame wrapped in 12 pentagon and 20 hexagon aluminum composite panels, arranged in the familiar geometry of a traditional soccer ball. At roughly six feet in diameter — about the size of a small car — the panels give each artist a blank canvas built for painting, mixed media, or UV-printed graphics. The sculptures were fabricated at Powerhouse Arts in Gowanus, Brooklyn, and assembled at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, putting two of the region's best-known art production facilities behind a single citywide rollout.

Who's In It

The artist list reads like a cross-section of the contemporary art world, and the roster was shaped by an advisory panel of museum leaders — including directors and curators from MoMA, the Met, the Whitney, El Museo del Barrio, the Brooklyn Museum, the Centre Pompidou, and the Van Abbemuseum.

A sampling of where to find the work:

• Bony Ramirez — MetLife Stadium, host of the World Cup Final, with a sculpture built around portraits of Caribbean women and a recurring crimson motif.
• Leo Castañeda — Gansevoort Landing, steps from the Whitney, where his ball reads like a glitching screen, drawing on his background building video games and installations.
• Edgar Heap of Birds — SIUH Community Park on Staten Island, a mirrored-steel piece patterned with leaf and flame shapes; Heap of Birds is Southern Cheyenne, and his public work often carries a pointed edge about land and history.
• Gabriel Fontana — Fordham Plaza in the Bronx, the rare piece in the series that takes on team sports directly, reshuffling the rules of play itself.
• Mario Ayala — Pershing Square Plaza outside Grand Central, bringing the airbrushed lowrider style of his native Los Angeles.
• Tomokazu Matsuyama — Columbus Circle, wrapped in dense floral and striped patterning via UV print.
• Wyatt Kahn — Gotham Park, beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, in his signature spare, interlocking abstraction.
• Matthew Day Jackson — outside the Brooklyn Museum.
• Futura 2000 — Journal Square in Jersey City, with the atomized spray technique that helped define his graffiti-turned-gallery career.
• Bassim Al-Shaker — Exchange Place on the Jersey City waterfront, a marbled, painterly composition from the Iraqi-born painter and ARTS 14C resident artist.
• Katherine Bernhardt and Hank Willis Thomas — Rockefeller Plaza, installed in front of Christie's.
• Melissa McGill — Maxwell Pier in Hoboken.
• Madeline Hollander — Asbury Park.
• Kevin Beasley — Lincoln Park in Newark.
• Eddie Martinez — Newark Riverfront Park.
• Taína H. Cruz — The Yard in New Brunswick.
• Fred Wilson — Hudson Yards.
• Ronny Quevedo — El Museo del Barrio.
• Gabriel Lester — Paseo Park in Jackson Heights.
• Cemile Sahin — Alianza Dominicana Plaza in Washington Heights.
• Dan Funderburgh — Mana Contemporary in Jersey City.
• Nyugen Smith — Jersey City City Hall.

Placement wasn't incidental. Several works sit close to the communities the World Cup itself will pull in — Jackson Heights, home to Ecuadorian, Colombian, and Mexican fanbases, and Newark's Ironbound, with its Portuguese and Brazilian communities, both land squarely inside the map.

What Happens After the Whistle

Not all 23 sculptures are staying put. Twelve will remain as permanent public installations once the tournament ends. Five — the works by Hank Willis Thomas, Katherine Bernhardt, Fred Wilson, Bony Ramirez, and Tomokazu Matsuyama — will go to auction through Christie's, the project's official auction partner, with proceeds split between the artists and ARTS 14C. The rest will be sold privately under the same arrangement.

Art of the Game also carries a quieter story. It was the last philanthropic project set in motion by Agnes Gund, the influential art patron and collector who passed away last year. Gund didn't fund the initiative directly — instead, she used her decades of relationships across the museum world to bring the project's advisory panel together, connecting ARTS 14C with the institutional partners that made the artist selection possible. Diana Burroughs, executive director of ARTS 14C's Project 14C residency program, has said the project wouldn't have happened without her.

It's a fitting last act: a project built on the idea that public art and public sport pull people toward the same thing — a shared, unticketed space where anyone can show up. As the World Cup moves through the region this summer, Art of the Game offers a parallel trail, free and open, running from Rockefeller Plaza to Newark to the Jersey City waterfront.

Art of the Game is on view through Labor Day weekend across New York City's five boroughs and northern New Jersey.