World Cup Redux in Downtown DC

Now that the players have hung up their cleats, the fans have returned to their home countries, and the celebratory confetti has been swept up from streets of the US, Canada, Mexico (and especially, Spain!), we would do well to take stock of how World Cup 2026 will be remembered. What does soccer—the so-called ‘beautiful game’—mean to us now? The 2026 iteration of the tournament was certainly a behemoth, even record-breaking affair, being the first to feature 48 teams and 104 total matches, co-hosted across three countries and sixteen cities. How to think about soccer or, if you would, fútbol, in the Cup’s aftermath?

The bottom floor of a somewhat nondescript office building in downtown Washington, DC—located roughly two blocks from Lafayette Square—may offer some compelling answers.

There, the Inter-American Development Bank, an organization dedicated to providing financial backing for Latin American and Caribbean nations, houses the IDB ArtLac Gallery, a space that hosts temporary art exhibits from Latino artists. Indeed, the locale—almost by definition—tasks us to think about development, international relations, and money. With the current exhibit, titled Game Changers: The Field’s Pulse Meets the Gallery, visitors are also asked to ponder our relationship to soccer: How do we feel fandom?

The exhibition, curated by Manuela Reyes and Mariana Mejía, focuses on our experience as sports fans. It’s about the legends—whether our favorite player be Pelé, Messi, or Ronaldinho—but first and foremost, the exhibit puts our reaction to the game front and center.

A massive screen projects on the walls some of most celebrated scores from World Cup history, each subsequently accompanied by some of the longest shouts of “GOOOOAAAAAL” ever attempted by announcers. A short hallway is replete with jerseys from the likes of Brazil’s Pelé (Edson Arantes do Nascimento) and Argentina’s Lionel Messi. Yet, the signatures on those jerseys make their significance clearer: the game is actually a gift to us. As the curatorial statement proposes, “sport is approached as a space of cultural expression, one that holds the potential to connect communities, strengthen identities, and imagine new possibilities for collective life.” As soccer fans, we enjoy an “embodied experience.”

Even a pair of virtual reality goggles allows visitors to take the field themselves.

Included in the show are a pair of photographs by Venezuelan Ronald Pizzoferrato depicting young Venezuelan men on the soccer field, their faces obscured by blankets. As reported elsewhere, Pizzoferrato’s photographs are life-size prints, each depicting anonymous individuals obscured by the objects crucial to their migration process, such as blankets, backpacks, and mats. Thus, in Game Changers, the migrant journeys get recontextualized or repurposed. Somehow it works: even soccer—the game’s passions, its frustrations, its ability to make us temporarily forget our hardships—does serve as backdrop to the migrant journey.

Also in the gallery is a three-dimensional mural by Mexico’s Rodrigo Ímaz. The artist explains his practice as a constant search for his Mexican roots. His balones ponchados or ‘flattened soccer balls’ populate the entire gallery. Ímaz associates the popped spheres with pelota mixteca—the traditional ball game played throughout Mesoamerica since time immemorial. The image feels central to Mexican identity, while the plants sprouting from the puncture suggest fecundity. Perhaps, as with the ancient Aztecs, death—a blowout, a rupture—is central to the continuance of life.

Perhaps the most compelling art of the show is that of Ecuadorian artist Felipe Jácome, whose work focuses on how young, soccer-crazed Argentine males dream of becoming the next Maradona or Messi, but find themselves confronted at every turn by hyperinflation and economic strife. His painting thus features black-and-white photographic cutouts of young footballers in mid-action, each silhouetted by banknotes. No matter the amount of fan passion, no matter the drive for sporting excellence, soccer remains a big business, constantly pointing up the reality that international soccer takes our enthusiasm and our money, but gives us little recourse to change our socioeconomic well-being. Again, what better place to ruminate on our situation than in a bank?

In these days immediately following the World Cup, you may find yourself in need of just a few more goals, a few more cheers, and a few more feats of athleticism. A quick tiki-taka stutter step into the IDB ArtLac Gallery may be just the ticket.

The show runs through November 13, 2026.