Soccer’s visual language has become a durable source of material for contemporary artists, and this summer it is surfacing in New York and New Jersey through fundraising exhibitions, public sculpture, and video works that treat the game as more than sport.
The IMAZ Foundation recently opened “Chapter One” at Ideal Glass Atelier in New York, presenting 11 soccer ball sculptures by artists including Dustin Yellin, José Duran, Ryan Schneider, and Diana Carla Rowe. Although the exhibition closed yesterday, the works have moved into a silent auction that will benefit the construction of homes for single mothers in Quito, Ecuador, in partnership with CAEMBA, a community-based organization working with local families.
A second project, organized by the arts-accessibility nonprofit ARTS 14C, extends the conversation into public space. “The Art of the Game” places 23 larger-than-life soccer sculptures across the five boroughs and parts of New Jersey, including near MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, the World Cup host venue. The commissioned artists include Katherine Bernhardt, Bony Ramirez, Eddie Martinez, and Fred Wilson, selected by a jury of museum professionals.
The article frames these projects within a broader artistic tradition. Paul Pfeiffer (b. 1966) uses found sports footage in “Jerusalem,” a 90-minute video based on the 1966 World Cup final, in which the United Kingdom defeated West Germany 4–2. The work, commissioned by Artangel, turns Wembley Stadium into a flickering field of bodies, chants, and political charge.
Douglas Gordon (b. 1966) and Philippe Parreno (b. 1964) take a different approach in “Zidane, a 21st Century Portrait,” a two-channel installation shot by 17 cameras during a Real Madrid match against Villareal on April 23, 2005. The piece follows Zinedine Zidane in real time, shifting between athletic intensity and moments of tactical pause. It is on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach through July 19.
Lucia Hierro and Jamel Robinson extend the theme through sculpture, where the soccer ball becomes a vessel for questions of labor, race, identity, and belief. In Robinson’s “Free by Fire,” a sliced ball, the word “free,” and gold-colored nails arranged in a cross shape create an image that is both symbolic and uneasy.
Taken together, the works suggest why soccer remains such a potent subject for artists: it condenses spectacle, devotion, and conflict into a form that is instantly legible, yet still open to reinvention.
