Collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase, The Friends of Art Endowment Fund.
As FIFA World Cup draws global attention to the pitch, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth is turning to its collection for a work that expands the language of the game beyond sport. Continuing throughout the World Cup, Montana Xibalba: Translation #2, 1963, by Jess will be on view in the museum’s Grand Lobby. Admission to view the painting is free.
Acquired by the Modern in 1996, Montana Xibalba is the second work in the artist’s Translation series, in which the artist reinterpreted found images through a dense, symbolic visual language. Born Burgess Collins, Jess trained as a chemist before becoming an artist through the GI Bill. His work, made throughout the second half of the 20th century, is known for its intimate scale, enigmatic imagery, and layered connections across literature, myth, history, and visual culture.
For Montana Xibalba, Jess reproduced a photograph of a soccer game from a yearbook he discovered in a second-hand shop. The image led him toward an ancient Mayan cosmological myth in which the birth of the sun and moon resulted from a ball game between two earthly heroes and the Lords of Xibalba, a realm akin to Hades. In the painting, the yellow ball becomes the sun, while the players take on the role of mythic heroes. What begins as an image of athletic competition becomes a meditation on transformation, ritual, and the symbolic charge of play.
The timing of the installation gives the work renewed immediacy. As soccer fans gather around matches, teams, and national allegiances, the painting looks backward and outward, suggesting that the drama of the game has always carried meanings larger than the final score. The work evokes play, camaraderie, and team pride. The Modern’s presentation of Montana Xibalba also underscores the museum’s role as a site where contemporary experience and art historical inquiry can meet in unexpected ways.
Visitors to the museum can also see Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers, on view through September 27, 2026. The exhibition, Johnson’s largest to date and his first major museum survey in more than a decade, traces the artist’s practice across photography, video, painting, sculpture, film, and installation. Bringing together nearly 90 works, the survey considers art history, philosophy, Black popular culture, identity, masculinity, parenthood, and self-care through Johnson’s materially complex and multidisciplinary practice.
With Montana Xibalba installed in the Grand Lobby, the Modern offers World Cup visitors and local audiences a different kind of match to consider: one between sport and myth, found image and collective excitement.