Lyndon J. Barrois Sr.’s Shows Miniature Portraits of World Cup History

There have been no shortage of controversies at this year’s 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. President Donald Trump intervened to have US player Folarin Balogun’s automatic match suspension from a red card being delayed a year so he could play in the USMNT’s match against Belgium. There were accusations that several matches have been refereed in favor of Argentina.

There have also been many moments of celebration. Cabo Verde, Curaçao, Jordan, and Uzbekistan made their debuts in the tournament. The Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti returned after more than five decades. Countries made their first-ever World Cup goals. And there were impossible saves by goalkeepers, like Cabo Verde’s Vozinha and Curaçao’s Eloy Room; there was also Mexico’s inspiring run that launched the hope-filled phrase “Y si sí.”

All that’s to say that there is a lot at stakes in a single World Cup tournament. And this edition is hardly an anomaly in that regard.

The World Cup’s tradition of inspiring both joy and controversy moved artist Lyndon J. Barrois, Sr. to create a new body of work that surveys important moments from the tournament’s history, from 1930 to 2022. The artist’s works are currently the subject of an exhibition, titled “Fútbol Is Life: Animated Sportraits by Lyndon J. Barrois, Sr.” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (through July 26).

His historical highlights feature important moments both on the pitch—like Brazilian player Marta kissing her booth after making a record-setting 17th goal in the 2019 Women’s World Cup or Haitian-born Joe Gaetjens being carried off the field after scoring the winning goal in the US’s 1950 victory over England—and off the pitch, like Nelson Mandela arriving at the 2010 World Cup final, hosted in South Africa. He also highlights historical players, like Eddy Hamel, the first Jewish and American player for Dutch team Ajax who was killed in Auschwitz in 1943, and protests against the World Cup, like protesters outside a 2013 match in Brazil between Spain and Italy ahead of the 2014 World Cup with signs like “FIFA GO HOME.” While these moving vignettes carry the weight of history, Barrois has shrunk them down to miniature size. They are all made with painted gum wrappers that measure just a few inches, forcing viewers to get up close to the works and take them in.

ARTnews spoke with Barrois on June 23, the final day of the group stage’s second matches, to discuss his LACMA exhibition, the World Cup, and the politics involved in a sporting event on the world stage.  

This interview has been edited and condensed for concision and clarity.

ARTnews: Have you been watching the World Cup? What have been some of your highlights so far?

Lyndon J. Barrois, Sr.: I am watching, and I’m enjoying it a whole lot more than I thought I would. I don’t know why that is. It’s been very cool. My wife, Janine, and I were given tickets by [LACMA director] Michael Govan to the US’s opening game at SoFi/LA Stadium, so we saw USA vs. Paraguay. I’m telling you, it was electric. It was nuts, but so much fun. I’ve 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.

It’s been great to see the reaction, but I can’t 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’re hanging in there, and it’s 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’s 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’ve won two games in a row. I didn’t see that one coming, but I also noticed how different the players are.

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’s going to be tough to watch, especially since the World Cup is one of the few sporting events I personally feel invested in every four years. But it has been great to see so many of the players just leaving it on the field. And there have been so historic moments, like when Curaçao scored its first-ever World Cup goal—and against Germany—or when Cape Verde’s 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’s World Cup.

Yeah, or Curaçao’s goalkeeper [Eloy Room] making 15 saves against Ecuador [which marked a record for 90-minute play]. Win or lose, it’s so exciting to see them do that because of what it means to the country, what it means to the players—all of it. We get all crazy over the Super Bowl or the Knicks winning, but that’s 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] Mbappé, [Erling] Haaland, and Cristiano [Ronaldo] battle is just cool stuff.

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?

I wanted to just expand the narrative of the first piece I did about football, Fútballet, for the Pérez Art Museum Miami’s exhibition [“Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture”]. 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’ works, like gay rights in sports, but no one addressed the women’s games. [PAMM director] Franklin [Sirmans] told me, “I’m glad you did that.” 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? When that was pointed out to me, I realized, Oh, this is a political piece.

So, 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—not 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’s moments like that, or Joe Gaetjens scoring the winning goal [in the US team’s 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’s not just what’s 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.

How did you start working with gum wrappers and at such a small scale?

Just being that kid in New Orleans, making toys. [Laughs.] 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’t move like I really wanted them to move. I don’t know where that came from, because I wasn’t 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.

My mom was a voracious gum chewer—this is all her fault. [Laughs.] 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—because you can’t paint the foil side, the ink won’t stick—I 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. 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’t do anything but buzz around the field. One of my brothers was recently joking with me, saying, “You made them because we wouldn’t let you play with ours.” I didn’t remember that part, but it sounds right. He also said, “Then yours were even cooler than ours. Then we wanted to play with yours. Your imagination was so vivid.” I would make teams, and I’d set up my own games, and I could put them down in position.

I 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’t 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.

That eventually led me to apply to CalArts, where I got accepted into the animation program. I didn’t 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! (1996), which was all stop motion. Around this time Jurassic Park and Toy Story came out, so I applied to work at studios that were training animators in software to animate on a computer, and that’s how I got into the visual effects world as a character animator, then as an animation director.

Do you see the work you do in visual effects in the film industry, and your sculpture practice as related?

Absolutely. I approach it all the same. That’s why the exhibition is called “Animated Sportraits.” They’re all in motion; they’re just frozen in time, whether it’s very subtle like players consoling each other or if they’re celebrating, or if they’re more in action in the middle of a play. That’s what I really go for: the motion, just to feel the moment. I haven’t worked on any features in a while because I’ve turned my focus back my art. My son told me, “It’s cool you do all those films, but you’re the only one on the planet who actually makes these works out of chewing gum wrappers the way you do, and then you animate.” I’m 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’ve done some really cool features, everything from the Matrix trilogy to Happy Feet. Nothing gives me joy like my work.

What was the time frame for making the news works featured the LACMA show?

Six of the pieces in the show already existed, including Fútballet (2018), which LACMA acquired; 19 (Depicting Nineteen Historic LA Rams Players from 1946–2022), which I completed in 2022 for a show at Sofi [Stadium]; They Were the First to Ride (1995), which was done as my thesis film for CalArts; and Black Jockeys Praxinoscope (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 Mbappé sculpture are all new. In April 2025, LACMA said, “OK, Lyndon, the World Cup is coming back, and we want to put Fútballet on view. Have you do work around it?” I loved the idea, and then they showed me the space, and I thought, “Wow, you have really been thinking about.” 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.

To 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’ve always wanted to do that, but I just never had the right reason to. Artistically, I’m so in tune to working at a smaller scale—I just think in that scale—but 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.

Did you find it difficult scaling up for the larger works?

I 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, “OK, this is not too small.” 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’t because gravity would take over and they just wouldn’t hold. The miniature ones are small enough that the gravity doesn’t affect them in that way. I can pose them, and they’ll hold their pose, just because of their scale.

So, 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’ 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 first, and I did Messi 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’re suspended or jumping around. Sometimes, they shift slightly because gravity will do it. I have to rig them so precise that they won’t 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.

What has the response been to the exhibition?

I’ve been in a museum at least once or twice every week since it’s 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—walking through, looking at it, saying it’s nice, and just walking out—to people who are really engaged with it, looking at every piece and reading every wall text. I’ve had people who aren’t even sports fans or soccer fans, who will I’ve noticed doing that. I like to be a fly on the wall. Every now and then, I’ll get recognized because they’ll see me in the video. They’ll come up to me, and say, “I just want to thank you for doing this, because I have never looked at the game this way.” I have a vignette of Senegal beating France [in 2002], and a man came up to me and said, “Oh my god, man. I was at that game. I can’t believe you have this in here.” 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.

When 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’t know I had that game in the show as well, where Japan beat the US, and she’s 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.

The moments I’ve 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 “HUMAN RIGHTS” 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’re touching on everything. Some of them are in tears. It’s been very emotional in that way.

I think I’m going to tackle the Olympics next because that’s just as powerful as the World Cup. It’s a world competition again. It’s countries coming together. It’s the politics and everything—and it’s back in LA in two years.