A major public art project celebrating the FIFA World Cup 2026™ will debut across New York (all five boroughs) and New Jersey later this month, featuring 23 soccer-ball themed sculptures by artists who were nominated by leadership of museums including MoMA, the Met, the Whitney Museum, El Museo del Barrio, the Brooklyn Museum, and more.

The initiative – conceived and organized by the New Jersey-based arts accessibility nonprofit ARTS 14C – is a partnership with the official regional organizing body of the FIFA World Cup 2026™ (the FIFA World Cup 2026™ New York New Jersey Host Committee), with additional support from Christie’s as the project’s official auction partner.

As Agnes Gund’s last philanthropic project before her September 2025 death, the initiative is organized by a dear friend of hers: the executive director of ARTS 14C’s residency program, Diana Burroughs. Gund was not asked to financially contribute; rather, she furnished the project with her connections in order to leverage global fascination with the World Cup to engage the public with institutionally celebrated artists.

A full list of artists and locations is in the press release here, but the names include: Katherine Bernhardt, Hank Willis Thomas, Bony Ramirez, Futura 2000, Eddie Martinez, Fred Wilson, Melissa McGill, Edgar Heap of Birds, Madeline Hollander, Kevin Beasley, Wyatt Kahn, Mario Ayala, Leo Castañeda, Taína H. Cruz, Ronny Quevedo, Tomokazu Matsuyama, Bassim Al-Shaker, Matthew Day Jackson, Gabriel Lester, Cemile Sahin, Gabriel Fontana, and Nyugen Smith.

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More information is in the above-linked press release, and a preview of works on view is below. See the Dropbox folder linked above to download high-resolution image files. Artwork information is in each image’s file or folder title. Image reuse must be exclusively in association with press coverage of the project, with the credit line “copyright of the artist and courtesy of ARTS 14C” unless otherwise noted in the file or folder title for specific image sets.