Lyndon Barrois, Sr. By Okla Jones ·Updated February 12, 2026 /> Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…

On February 15, 2026, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will open Fútbol Life: Animated Sportraits, a sweeping new solo exhibition by Lyndon J. Barrois, Sr. Timed just ahead of the World Cup, the show positions soccer not simply as entertainment, but as a lens through which to examine politics, representation, and history.

Barrois has long been recognized for >Women’s soccer is deliberately highlighted, because Barrois felt that it needed to be. “I always did women because they win everything,” he said. “And all these soccer pieces you see at all these shows and documentaries and exhibitions, the women have no presence. I’m just going, ‘That’s so weird to me. How do you tell this story and leave them out?’”

Barrois’ focus on soccer emerged gradually. Known in Los Angeles art and entertainment circles primarily for his visual effects work on films including The Matrix trilogy and Happy Feet, he said many friends did not initially recognize him as a fine artist. “No one knew me as an artist outside of visual effects,” he recalled. It was through social media that museum leaders began to connect the dots. After creating a tabletop-scale diorama of soccer history for a 2018 exhibition in Miami, the work eventually entered LACMA’s permanent collection. When museum director Michael Govan proposed revisiting the piece in advance of the World Cup’s return to Los Angeles, Barrois saw an opportunity to expand the narrative.

Lyndon Barrois, Work-in-progress, ahead of LACMA show.

The exhibition’s timeline pairs athletic feats with the political climates surrounding them, but Barrois is particularly interested in the gaps in between. “From 1930 up until 1974, there were always Northern African nations playing, but the first Sub-Saharan team to play was from Zaire,” he noted. “It took 43 years for that team to be recognized by FIFA—It really makes you think.”

Fútbol Life includes a piece titled 19, honoring 19 Black players who shaped the Los Angeles Rams from 1943 to 2022, alongside a kinetic work celebrating Black jockeys. Although the central focus is soccer, Barrois draws connections across sports, underscoring how exclusion and activism surface repeatedly in athletic arenas.

The show’s title nods to the popular phrase “Football is life,” but Barrois insists the sentiment runs deeper than pop culture. For him, the sport serves as a lens through which to examine themes like protest, migration, race, and national identity.

“In terms of how the world reacts to this game and how it can separate or unite nations, it’s powerful,” the artist said. “I wanted the conversations to go more in depth this time, to bring in the politics and the questions that come up when you really look at the history. I’m never going away from that. That’s what we do as artists.”

Fútbol Life: Animated Sportraits opens at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on February 15 through July 12, 2026.

TOPICS:  lacma World Cup

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