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<\/div>\n<\/div>ARTnews: Have you been watching the World Cup? What have been some of your highlights so far?<\/strong><\/p>\n Lyndon J. Barrois, Sr.: <\/strong>I am watching, and I\u2019m enjoying it a whole lot more than I thought I would. I don\u2019t know why that is. It\u2019s been very cool. My wife, Janine, and I were given tickets by [LACMA director] Michael Govan to the US\u2019s opening game at SoFi\/LA Stadium, so we saw USA vs. Paraguay.\u00a0I\u2019m telling you, it was electric. It was nuts, but so much fun. I\u2019ve actually flipped the coin at four Los Angeles FC games. The last one was the home opener here, where we played Miami FC. I got to hang on the field for like a minute with [Lionel] Messi. That was wild.<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s been great to see the reaction, but I can\u2019t get out of my head the restrictive parts of it, like the treatment of the Somali ref [Omar Artan, who was denied entry into the US], and how the US is treating the Iranian team. But they\u2019re hanging in there, and it\u2019s good to see that. Most of the games have been good and competitive, some of them blow outs. You feel bad for those guys, you do all that work, and that happens and it\u2019s like, goddamn, we laid an egg. But still, they got the shot, they got there, so you know, you got to be happy today. I was shocked that US has won, the first time they\u2019ve won two games in a row. I didn\u2019t see that one coming, but I also noticed how different the players are.<\/p>\n I agree with you. Ahead of the start of the World Cup, reading all the news about the treatment of various teams and fans from the Global South, I thought, oh, it\u2019s going to be tough to watch, especially since<\/strong>the World Cup is one of the few sporting events I personally feel invested in every four years.<\/strong>But it has <\/em>been great to see so many of the players just leaving it on the field. And there have been so historic moments, like when Cura\u00e7ao scored its first-ever World Cup goal\u2014and against Germany\u2014or when Cape Verde\u2019s goalkeeper Vozinha made incredible saves and held Spain scoreless. Seeing the reactions of fans of those teams and the emotion that that means for them has been, for me, one of the best aspects of watching this year\u2019s World Cup.<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tYeah, or Cura\u00e7ao\u2019s goalkeeper [Eloy Room] making 15 saves against Ecuador [which marked a record for 90-minute play]. Win or lose, it\u2019s so exciting to see them do that because of what it means to the country, what it means to the players\u2014all of it. We get all crazy over the Super Bowl or the Knicks winning, but that\u2019s so local. We have no idea what scoring your first goal at the World Cup feels like. Watching all these games has just been great, getting to see Messi, [Kylian] Mbapp\u00e9, [Erling] Haaland, and Cristiano [Ronaldo] battle is just cool stuff.<\/p>\n Talking about these just-minted historic moments in football history reminds me of the ones that you document in your LACMA exhibition. I found these dioramic sculptures you made so moving. How did you get the idea to make them?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI wanted to just expand the narrative of the first piece I did about football, F\u00fatballet<\/em>, for the P\u00e9rez Art Museum Miami\u2019s exhibition [\u201cGet in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture\u201d]. In that group show, my piece was the only one that addressed women in sports. That was weird to me because there were many other topics addressed in other artists\u2019 works, like gay rights in sports, but no one addressed the women\u2019s games. [PAMM director] Franklin [Sirmans] told me, \u201cI\u2019m glad you did that.\u201d I found that so bizarre, especially when you talk about US involvement in the World Cup, the women are the ones winning everything, so how do you leave them out? I guess it was just a subconscious political statement, but I thought it was the right thing to do. How could you not have Brandi Chastain ripping off her jersey because of the earthquake that made it around the world when she did that?\u00a0When that was pointed out to me, I realized, Oh, this is a political piece.<\/p>\n \n\tSo, I just wanted to expand [the project], looking at the history of the World Cup from 1930 to 2022, and talk about all of it. I compiled moments that stuck out to me in the whole lexicon of all the tournaments\u2014not just the winning moments or the losing moments, but things that actually did happen on the field, and what they meant to countries like Saudi Arabia, beating Argentina in 2022, the year Argentina wins the World Cup. That was so huge for Saudi Arabia. It\u2019s moments like that, or Joe Gaetjens scoring the winning goal [in the US team\u2019s 1-0 victory over England in the 1950 World Cup]. I wanted to do the moments that made an impact on me, and what I felt were important to tell the whole story of it because it\u2019s not just what\u2019s done on the pitch. The game is more far-reaching. I do my art for my satisfaction and what it means to me. I hope they will have the same effect people see it. Sometimes, they see things in there beyond what I had even thought of, and they talk to me about it, and it just hits me even harder.<\/p>\n How did you start working with gum wrappers and at such a small scale?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tJust being that kid in New Orleans, making toys. [Laughs.<\/em>] I grew up with three older brothers. We had action figures, Electric Football, and all that stuff, but they were just so limited to me. They didn\u2019t move like I really wanted them to move. I don\u2019t know where that came from, because I wasn\u2019t consciously thinking about it in terms of animation or art. But I did draw all the time, and I did make things out of whatever I got my hands on. Some of my favorite materials [growing up] were modeling clay and discarded phone wire because I could mold it and do all kinds of things with it, as well as aluminum foil because I could ball it up shape animals or people out of it.<\/p>\n \n\tMy mom was a voracious gum chewer\u2014this is all her fault. [Laughs.<\/em>] She would chew so much gum and swallow it, and the doctors told her to stop because it was not healthy. Before she stopped, I would take the discarded wrappers. I just realized one day that the wrappers were two of my favorite materials meshed together: foil and paper. I started to make things out of that. The more I saw the paper, I would get my markers and color it. Then I realized if I sculpted with the paper side out\u2014because you can\u2019t paint the foil side, the ink won\u2019t stick\u2014I could color it all over and now I could make people. So, I started making drivers to put in Hot Wheels cars. That turned into boxers because of Rocky<\/em>. Then being a sports fanatic, I also started to make individual football players and then teams because the figures in the Electric Football were so stiff, and they didn\u2019t do anything but buzz around the field. One of my brothers was recently joking with me, saying, \u201cYou made them because we wouldn\u2019t let you play with ours.\u201d I didn\u2019t remember that part, but it sounds right. He also said, \u201cThen yours were even cooler than ours. Then we wanted to play with yours. Your imagination was so vivid.\u201d I would make teams, and I\u2019d set up my own games, and I could put them down in position. <\/p>\n \n\tI started doing that in grammar school then in junior high and even to college, I always made them. Until I went to Xavier University of Louisiana, I didn\u2019t realize how much I had learned about anatomy as it relates to being able to draw and sculpt. Then, I took an anatomy course so I could get them more correct. My teacher and mentor John T. Scott made me realize that this was a viable art form. To me, I was just making toys. It was a hobby. My focus then was on graphic design, but when I saw how he responded to it, I shifted my focus. When Super Bowl XXIV came to New Orleans, I made dioramas of the previous 23 games.<\/p>\n \n\tThat eventually led me to apply to CalArts, where I got accepted into the animation program. I didn\u2019t know how to break into the industry, but that was the ticket in. I learned all about animation, apply the principles of 2D to stop motion. My first job out of CalArts was on Mars Attacks!<\/em> (1996), which was all stop motion. Around this time Jurassic Park<\/em> and Toy Story<\/em> came out, so I applied to work at studios that were training animators in software to animate on a computer, and that\u2019s how I got into the visual effects world as a character animator, then as an animation director.<\/p>\n Do you see the work you do in visual effects in the film industry, and your sculpture practice as related?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tAbsolutely. I approach it all the same. That\u2019s why the exhibition is called \u201cAnimated Sportraits.\u201d They\u2019re all in motion; they\u2019re just frozen in time, whether it\u2019s very subtle like players consoling each other or if they\u2019re celebrating, or if they\u2019re more in action in the middle of a play. That\u2019s what I really go for: the motion, just to feel the moment. I haven\u2019t worked on any features in a while because I\u2019ve turned my focus back my art. My son told me, \u201cIt\u2019s cool you do all those films, but you\u2019re the only one on the planet who actually makes these works out of chewing gum wrappers the way you do, and then you animate.\u201d I\u2019m just having the most fun. I have more fun doing this work than I do the features work, even as fun as that is, and I\u2019ve done some really cool features, everything from the Matrix<\/em> trilogy to Happy Feet<\/em>. Nothing gives me joy like my work.<\/p>\n What was the time frame for making the news works featured the LACMA show?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tSix of the pieces in the show already existed, including F\u00fatballet<\/em> (2018), which LACMA acquired; 19 (Depicting Nineteen Historic LA Rams Players from 1946\u20132022)<\/em>, which I completed in 2022 for a show at Sofi [Stadium]; They Were the First to Ride<\/em> (1995), which was done as my thesis film for CalArts; and Black Jockeys Praxinoscope<\/em> (2019). So, all of the pieces along the wall, the five in the middle, the two life-size sculptures, and the live feed of the Mbapp\u00e9 sculpture are all new. In April 2025, LACMA said, \u201cOK, Lyndon, the World Cup is coming back, and we want to put F\u00fatballet<\/em> on view. Have you do work around it?\u201d I loved the idea, and then they showed me the space, and I thought, \u201cWow, you have really been thinking about.\u201d So I did all that research between April and the beginning of June because, looking at the clock, I had to make all these pieces by January, so we could start installing.<\/p>\n \n\tTo give you the stats, there are 220 new individual sculptures in that show. I have to do each sculpture one at a time. (There are 325 sculptures total.) When I saw the space, I got it in my head that I had to do life-size sculptures to put in here. The two included in the show are the first two life-size ones I ever did. I\u2019ve always wanted to do that, but I just never had the right reason to. Artistically, I\u2019m so in tune to working at a smaller scale\u2014I just think in that scale\u2014but when I saw the space, it forced me to think about how cool it would be to do something that I can stand next to that looks just like the smaller works. And it was very important to do them from the same material. LACMA also accepted my idea to put the pitch on the floor, and they raised it by extending that design to the walls.<\/p>\n Did you find it difficult scaling up for the larger works?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI had the concept, but the concept was wrong. It took a lot of trial and error. When working at the miniature scale, each figure of a standard-size adult takes one paper-and-foil gum wrapper, whatever the gender or the sport. The scale of a wrapper itself is 1.5 inches by 3 inches, so twice as long as it is wide. I figured I should scale it up to like 62.5 or 63 times the size, so I got 9-foot-by-18-foot wrappers made. I thought thatif I sculpt it like I sculpt the others, I could make life-size figures. What I did not account for in that scaling up was the thickness and the weight of the paper, so I could still be able to mold it. When I did molded from those [larger] wrappers, the test came out to about the size of a child. I said, \u201cOK, this is not too small.\u201d At my normal scale, the foil is strong enough to pose the sculpture and for it to hold the pose. The life-size test wasn\u2019t because gravity would take over and they just wouldn\u2019t hold. The miniature ones are small enough that the gravity doesn\u2019t affect them in that way. I can pose them, and they\u2019ll hold their pose, just because of their scale. <\/p>\n \n\tSo, I had to experiment for the large ones with adding support. What I realized is that I need to get medical skeletons, so I got a few axial skeletons, so I could pose them, because the skeletons\u2019 joints move in every direction, like we do. I can pose the skeletons into these dynamic athletic poses, and then I used the wrappers just like I do with the smaller-scale ones. The only difference is the larger ones have an armature inside. All that trial and error took about five weeks a piece. I did Marta <\/em>first, and I did Messi<\/em> next, but a week or so into it, as I started to paint it, I was not happy with the pose. So, I skinned it, ripped all the paper off, reposed the skeleton, and then rewrapped it with all the same paper. Each giant one took about two-and-a-half or the larger wrappers. The smaller ones hold their pose, just because of their scale. They do haves poles and fish cord if they\u2019re suspended or jumping around. Sometimes, they shift slightly because gravity will do it. I have to rig them so precise that they won\u2019t move. Every time I go to a museum, I just always look at them to check on them. Because gravity or the vibrations when they travel can affect them.<\/p>\n What has the response been to the exhibition?<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\tI\u2019ve been in a museum at least once or twice every week since it\u2019s open. Sometimes for meetings, or just to see the vibe, how people are taking it in. The response runs the gamut from just casual visitors\u2014walking through, looking at it, saying it\u2019s nice, and just walking out\u2014to people who are really engaged with it, looking at every piece and reading every wall text. I\u2019ve had people who aren\u2019t even sports fans or soccer fans, who will I\u2019ve noticed doing that. I like to be a fly on the wall. Every now and then, I\u2019ll get recognized because they\u2019ll see me in the video. They\u2019ll come up to me, and say, \u201cI just want to thank you for doing this, because I have never looked at the game this way.\u201d I have a vignette of Senegal beating France [in 2002], and a man came up to me and said, \u201cOh my god, man. I was at that game. I can\u2019t believe you have this in here.\u201d These moments meant so much to me to include them in my whole repertoire of this, but they meant even more to people watching it.<\/p>\n \n\tWhen Hope Solo came [to see the show], she talked about not only what it meant to win in 2015 but also what it meant to lose in 2011. She didn\u2019t know I had that game in the show as well, where Japan beat the US, and she\u2019s the goalie getting scored on. She talked about it in the sense that she felt bad they lost, but she felt good for the Japanese team, because it was the year that they had that massive earthquake and tsunami, and the whole country was recovering from that. So, to beat the US in the final meant so much to them.<\/p>\n \n\tThe moments I\u2019ve chosen pay homage to players like Eddy Hamel, who never got to play in the World Cup because of World War II. He was [an American-born] Jewish superstar who played for Ajax and was killed in Auschwitz [in 1943]. Contrast that with the German team in 1938 doing Nazi salutes and wearing swastikas with the 2022 German team, which had \u201cHUMAN RIGHTS\u201d written on their shirts. Or, when the Moroccan team won [against Spain in the Round of 16 in 2022] and they flashed the Palestinian flag. People are like, You\u2019re touching on everything. Some of them are in tears. It\u2019s been very emotional in that way.<\/p>\n \n\tI think I\u2019m going to tackle the Olympics next because that\u2019s just as powerful as the World Cup. It\u2019s a world competition again. It\u2019s countries coming together. It\u2019s the politics and everything\u2014and it\u2019s back in LA in two years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/artists\/lyndon-j-barrois-sr-world-cup-sportraits-lacma-1234792130\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Lyndon-J.-Barrois-Sr.-Son-Heung-min-Christen-Press-and-Riqui-Puig-2025.jpg?w=1024″] There have been no shortage of controversies at this year\u2019s World Cup, which enters its final leg this with the final match happening Sunday. The Iranian team was not able to stay in the US. Somali referee Omar Artan was denied entry into the US and therefore unable to officiate any games. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2044247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2044247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2044247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2044247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2044247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2044247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2044247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/EX9536-VW019.jpg?w=400\")
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Qatar, November 22, 2022<\/em>, 2025. <\/span>Art: \u00a9Lyndon J. Barrois, Sr.; Photo: \u00a9Museum Associates\/LACMA, by Jonathan Urban<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/EX9536-VW024.jpg?w=400\")
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