Pass on the big game this weekend in favor of the world’s game. Opening to the public on Sunday, February 2, Fútbol: The Beautiful Game explores the sport, players, and spectators involved in the international obsession that is soccer. Represented through paint, sculpture, photography, and video works, the exhibition touches on issues of nationalism, globalism, and mass spectacle. Members have free, early access to Fútbol on Friday and Saturday. For more feats of synchronized athleticism see David Hockney: The Jugglers, a video artwork showing a procession of jugglers (accompanied by John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever”) through the lenses of eighteen fixed cameras on a multiscreen grid. The Jugglers opens on Saturday, February 1, in the Resnick Pavilion.

Kehinde Wiley, Samuel Eto'o, 2010, Roberts & Tilton Gallery, © Kehinde Wiley, Image courtesy of Kehinde Wiley, and Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, California

Nearby, Monterey Park residents and neighbors score big this weekend at the LACMA9 Monterey Park Art+Film Lab at East Los Angeles College. On Friday take part in Oral History Drop-ins in the early afternoon, see the LACMA9 Shorts Program at 7 pm on the big screen, and join in on the free Composition Workshop on Saturday at noon. This is the second to last week of free programming in Monterey Park before the Art+Film Lab heads to Hacienda Heights on February 21.

Gabriel Figueroa, film still from Una cita de amor, directed by Emilio "El Indio" Fernández, 1956, © Gabriel Figueroa Flores Archive

Back on campus, the clock winds down on Under the Mexican Sky: Gabriel Figueroa—Art and Film, which closes this Sunday. Figueroa was among the most important cinematographers of the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema, and his distinctive and vivid visual style crossed genre lines as well as country borders. For more art and cinema check out Masterworks for Expressionist Cinema: The Golem and Its Avatars and learn about the mythical figure from Jewish folklore. Lastly, take a timeout to enjoy Andell Family Sundays beginning at 12:30 pm (this month investigating memories and storytelling as seen in Shaping Power: Luba Masterworks from the Royal Museum for Central Africa) and Sundays Live with the Jolivet Trio at 6 pm in the Bing Theater. Now take the ball and run.

Roberto Ayala