Many in the artworld might be surprised to learn that one of the last projects the legendary art collector and philanthropist Agnes Gund worked on before her death last fall involved the 2026 FIFA World Cup, hosted this year in North America.
The project, Art of the Game, involved commissioning 23 contemporary artists—mostly nominated by high-profile museum curators—to design large-scale soccer ball sculptures celebrating the 23rd World Cup, which will be installed all summer long, and perhaps longer, around New York and New Jersey.
Art of the Game is organized by the ARTS 14C, a nonprofit based in Jersey City, New Jersey, and the NYNJ Host Committee, the body organizing FIFA’s eight local World Cup matches. ARTS 14C supports visual artists, writers, performers, and other cultural organizations with access to space and professional opportunities.
Diana Burroughs, executive director of ARTS 14C’s residency program, and Gund were friends for over four decades and shared a love of sports. “I knew I would not have to convince [Gund] of the idea’s merits,” Burroughs said in a statement about the project. “Aggie quickly began making introductions and put together a committee of the city’s top museums; I could not have done so myself. I am only sorry that she is not alive to appreciate what her goodwill has done.”
Robinson Holloway, ARTS 14C’s founder and CEO, told ARTnews that she met Alex Lasry, CEO of the host committee, at a Hudson County Chamber of Commerce lunch last March and suggested they collaborate on a public art project related to the World Cup. At the time, Lasry seemed skeptical, Holloway recalled. Soon after, an artist who had participated in Fabergé’s popular Big Egg Hunt in 2014 came to an event at ARTS 14C, and “a light bulb went off” for Burroughs. “Giant soccer balls. That’s what we’re going to do,” remembers Holloway. The host committee got on board and ended up covering all costs related to the project.
Gund, for her part, got to work last spring on forming a committee of museum curators to suggest artists for the project. “Agnes Gund, being who she was, was able to call up the heads of the Met and MoMA and the Whitney Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, and basically say to them, here’s something you need to be part of, and they all said, well, absolutely, we do,” recalls Holloway.
The first artist Gund reached out to was Katherine Bernhardt; her soccer ball is installed in Rockefeller Plaza in front of Christie’s headquarters in midtown Manhattan. Many others followed, among them Futura 2000 (nominated by Brooklyn Museum director Ann Pasternak), Edgar Heap of Birds (nominated by recently retired MoMA director Glenn Lowry), and Taína H. Cruz (nominated by Whitney Museum director Scott Rothkopf).
The sculptures were fabricated at Powerhouse Arts in Brooklyn and assembled at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City. They will be on view in various parks, plazas, and other public spaces through at least Labor Day, with the hope that many will remain on public view long term. Of the 23, five—by Fred Wilson, Tomokazu Matsuyama, Hank Willis Thomas, Katherine Bernhardt, and Bony Rameriz—will be part of an online auction at Christie’s from July 2 to 17, with proceeds shared between the artists, ARTS 14C, and Studio in a School, a nonprofit founded by Gund in 1977.
Check out some of the Art of the Game soccer balls below, all of which are on view as of today.
