Sarah Sze's Wave Fills the Main Atrium at Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NYC

Barclays Center in Brooklyn has unveiled its transformed Main Atrium, and overhead hangs Wave, a new site-specific work by artist Sarah Sze. According to the arena's official Instagram, 550 sculptural LED screens come together in a wave of movement, light and color, joined by a sweeping 180-degree LED wall that is meant to give arrivals an immersive welcome to Brooklyn.

Wave belongs to Brooklyn Art Encounters, the multi-year art program announced in April 2026 by Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, the parent company of the Nets, the Liberty and the arena. Vice Chair Clara Wu Tsai leads it. In the announcement, the work was described as a sweeping arc stretching across the ceiling, with projected imagery appearing, dissolving and recombining in fragments. Because it reads differently from each vantage point, the cresting movement is never fixed. The atrium is framed as both a visual landmark and a threshold into the arena.

Sze is a MacArthur Fellow whose work spans sculpture, installation, painting, drawing, video and architecture-scale environments. She represented the United States at the 2013 Venice Biennale, and her permanent public commissions include the High Line, the MTA's Second Avenue Subway, LaGuardia Airport and MIT. Her work is in the collections of MoMA, the Whitney and Tate Modern, among others.

The program extends well beyond the atrium. Large paintings by Mark Bradford and Rashid Johnson are planned for the arena's new Flatbush Premium entrance. Kambui Olujimi's group of seven bronze figures playing the street game Skelly is due on Ticketmaster Plaza in spring 2027. Paul Pfeiffer serves as the arena's first artist-in-residence, and LaToya Ruby Frazier's Liberty Portraits are on view on the suite level during arena tours.

The arena sits at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues. Its latest phase of renovation also includes a new American Express Card Member Entrance and the Amex Lounge.