The FIFA World Cup 2026 is coming to New York, and alongside the tournament comes Art of the Game: 23 monumental soccer ball sculptures scattered across the five boroughs and northern New Jersey, each one created by a different artist.

The artists involved are all represented in the collections of America’s leading museums: Futura 2000, Katherine Bernhardt, Hank Willis Thomas, Eddie Martinez, Kevin Beasley, Fred Wilson and others, nominated by directors and curators at MoMA, the Met, the Whitney, the Brooklyn Museum and El Museo del Barrio. Each sculpture is built on a stainless steel frame wrapped in 32 aluminium composite panels: 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons, the classic geometry of a soccer ball. The artists approached the brief in very different ways: Bernhardt spray-painted hers in her signature style, Tomokazu Matsuyama submitted graphics for UV printing, while Nyugen Smith, winner of an open call, worked hand-embellished mixed media into his.

Art of the Game marks the final philanthropic effort of Agnes Gund, legendary American art patron, who connected ARTS 14C — a Jersey City nonprofit running a 125,000-square-foot arts incubator — with the leadership of the city’s major museums and the FIFA World Cup 2026 New York New Jersey Host Committee.

The sculptures will be installed in parks, plazas, transit hubs and official watch party sites starting this month, remaining on view through Labor Day. Some will become permanent installations; five works — by Thomas, Bernhardt, Wilson, Ramirez and Matsuyama — will head to auction at Christie’s, with proceeds split between the artists, ARTS 14C and Studio in a School, the arts education nonprofit founded by Gund herself.