He's Been Making 1-Inch Soccer Players Out Of Gum Wrappers Since He Was 10: Now They're At LACMA

Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. started picking up discarded chewing gum wrappers off the ground in his hometown of New Orleans when he was ten years old, folding them into one-inch-high human figures, and over the decades that followed he never really stopped. He just got better. Barrois went on to become an award-winning visual effects artist whose credits include The Matrix trilogy and Happy Feet, building a career in Hollywood while quietly continuing to make his miniature sculptures at home in Los Angeles, collecting wrappers on every trip he took, returning from New Orleans with two dozen, finding more in Lisbon and Marrakesh and Nairobi. He did not initially think of the work as art. A professor had to tell him. Now those one-inch figures are on the walls of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The exhibition is called Fútbol Is Life: Animated Sportraits, and it opened on February 15, 2026, timed to coincide with the World Cup arriving in Los Angeles, and it runs through July 12.

The show features more than 60 works, including over 40 new dioramas that trace World Cup history from 1930 through 2022, capturing moments that many viewers will immediately recognize: Brandi Chastain ripping off her jersey after the 1999 Women's World Cup victory, Zinedine Zidane's headbutt, Brazil's Marta celebrating a goal. For the first time, Barrois also presents life-sized versions of his sportraits, built from gum-wrapper material enlarged 62 times its original size and stretching up to nine feet wide, an effect that makes the viewer feel simultaneously like a giant looking down at a diorama and a small child looking up at something vast and important. Barrois was insistent that the women's game be represented throughout: he said he has always been baffled by soccer exhibitions that leave the women's history out entirely, noting that they win everything and are so talented that their exclusion makes no sense. The exhibition runs at LACMA's Resnick Pavilion through July 12, with World Cup matches at SoFi Stadium just across town running alongside it through the same summer.

Source:https://laist.com/news/los-angeles-activities/lyndon-barrois-lacma-futbol-is-life-world-cup