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World Cup fever has officially arrived and New York is about to get a lot more spherical.
Starting this month, giant artist-designed soccer balls will appear across all five boroughs and neighboring New Jersey as part of Art of the Game, a public art project that turns the world's most recognizable piece of sports equipment into a citywide outdoor gallery. The initiative will feature 23 large-scale sculptures created by an impressive roster of contemporary artists, including Katherine Bernhardt, Hank Willis Thomas, Eddie Martinez, Bony Ramirez, Tomokazu Matsuyama, Futura 2000 and Fred Wilson.
If the names sound museum-worthy, that's because they are. Participating artists were nominated by leaders from institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, El Museo del Barrio and the Brooklyn Museum, among others. The project was developed by Jersey City-based arts nonprofit ARTS 14C.
The sculptures will pop up in parks, plazas, transit hubs and major public spaces throughout the region. New York locations include Rockefeller Plaza, Grand Central's Pershing Square Plaza, Columbus Circle, Hudson Yards, Fordham Plaza in the Bronx, Paseo Park in Jackson Heights, the Brooklyn Museum, the Brooklyn Bridge area and Staten Island's SIUH Community Park. Across the river, installations will appear in Jersey City, Newark, Hoboken, Asbury Park, New Brunswick and even outside MetLife Stadium, where the World Cup final will be played next month.
The project also carries a poignant backstory. According to organizers, it was the final philanthropic initiative championed by legendary arts patron Agnes Gund before her death last September. Rather than funding the project directly, Gund helped connect organizers with museum leaders, galleries and artists, helping take a simple idea (soccer balls as public sculptures) and turn it into a region-wide exhibition.
Each sculpture begins with the familiar geometry of a traditional soccer ball: 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons mounted on a stainless-steel frame, but what happens next is entirely up to the artist. Some works feature hand-painted imagery, others incorporate mixed media and several use large-scale printed designs.
The installations will remain on view through Labor Day. Some will become permanent public artworks, while others—including sculptures by Hank Willis Thomas, Katherine Bernhardt, Fred Wilson, Bony Ramirez and Tomokazu Matsuyama—will head to auction through Christie's, with proceeds benefiting artists and arts education programs.
Think of it as a World Cup art trail: 23 giant soccer balls, dozens of neighborhoods and one summer-long celebration of the beautiful game.