Artist and musician Yoko Ono will have her artwork featured on 160 of New York's yellow cabs in January. (Dave Hogan/Getty Images)

The next place to see modern art in New York City could be on an iconic yellow cab.

Show Media, the company that sells advertising space on taxi roofs, says it will display works by three artists on 500 of the city's taxis during January.

Company co-owner John Amato says it's his way of giving back to the city and will cost Show Media $100,000 US in revenue.

The Art Productions Fund of New York helped Show Media select the artists whose works will become moving exhibits: Yoko Ono, Alex Katz and Shirin Neshat.

The three will have their pieces displayed on 160 cabs each. Each artist has come up with a unique work for the ad space.

Iranian-born Neshat said she thought of Pakistani- and Senegalese-born taxi drivers when told about the project. Neshat said she decided to make her work "non-Western" — a reflection of New York City's melting pot.

One side of the display illustrates a handshake, while the other has an eye with a poem by a female Iranian poet, called I Feel Sorry for the Garden, written in Persian in the white part of the eye.

Ono told the New York Times she's adapting the "War is Over" slogan that she and her late husband, John Lennon, used in their peace tour from 1969 to 1970. The slogan will be shown in English and in sign language.

"It's almost like a dance," she told The New York Times, "the way the message is always in motion."