LACMA: Ode to Soccer World Cup Show

At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Lyndon J. Barrois Sr.’s soccer exhibition turns gum-wrapper sculptures and stop-motion scenes into a World Cup countdown in Los Angeles. (lacma.org) LACMA says *Fútbol Is Life: Animated Sportraits by Lyndon J. Barrois, Sr.* opened February 15, 2026, in the Resnick Pavilion and runs through July 12, 2026. The museum’s current-homepage listings describe it as on view through July 26, a sign that visitors should check LACMA’s latest schedule before going. (lacma.org 1) (lacma.org 2) The show brings together 60 works by Barrois, including more than 40 new vignettes drawn from World Cup matches across 95 years. LACMA says many of the pieces had not been shown publicly before this exhibition. (lacma.org) Barrois builds one-inch figures from chewing-gum wrappers, glue and paint, then animates some of them with stop-motion sequences shot and edited on iPhones. The result is a museum show that treats soccer history as both sculpture and moving image. (lacma.org) LACMA tied the exhibition directly to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which the museum says is arriving in Los Angeles this summer. The museum also linked the show to a broader sports-and-culture push as Los Angeles prepares for both the World Cup and the 2028 Olympics. (lacma.org) The exhibition includes portraits of local soccer names Son Heung-Min of Los Angeles Football Club, Christen Press, formerly of Angel City Football Club, and Riqui Puig of the LA Galaxy. It also includes life-size sculptures of Marta and Lionel Messi. (lacma.org) One anchor work is *Fútballet*, Barrois’s 2018 installation and short film that combines 21 soccer scenes on a 50-inch pitch. LACMA placed it beside photographs by Harold Edgerton and Eadweard Muybridge from its permanent collection to connect soccer motion to the history of motion studies and time-lapse photography. (lacma.org) This weekend’s programming folded the show into LACMA’s revived “Third Weekends” series. In its April 13 roundup, the museum listed *The Art of Football Boots* for Friday, April 17, at 6:30 p.m. in BCAM and an outdoor screening of *Pelé* at 7:30 p.m. in Hancock Park. (unframed.lacma.org) Time Out included LACMA’s weekend offerings in its April 17–19 guide as Los Angeles packed its calendar with the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Masters of Taste and the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. LACMA’s own hours for this weekend were 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. (timeout.com) (unframed.lacma.org) By Sunday, April 19, the museum’s soccer show sat alongside another LACMA milestone: member previews for the new David Geffen Galleries began the same day. The World Cup art pitch, in other words, landed as LACMA was trying to turn one April weekend into a larger statement about where the museum is headed next. (lacma.org)