Guggenheim to Screen Artistic Portrait of Soccer Legend Zinédine Zidane
Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno's masterpiece about the French player will go on view at the museum this summer, timed with a bitter World Cup.
On the heels of an uninspiring AI tribute to Leo Messi at Christie's last year, one of the greatest artworks about soccer — or football, as it should be called — ever created is coming to New York City this summer.
Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno's “Zidane, a 21st century portrait,” a 2006 film celebrating French soccer legend Zinédine Zidane, will be screened from June 11 to July 19 at the Guggenheim Museum, timed with the first and last whistles of the FIFA World Cup.
The two-channel video piece has a deceptively simple premise: a 90-minute match between Real Madrid and Villarreal shot entirely from the perspective of Zidane, the attacking midfielder known for his sophisticated passes, technical mastery, and, less ceremoniously, his dismissal from the 2006 World Cup in the 110th minute after head-butting Italian center back Marco Materazzi.
Footage captured by 17 cameras placed throughout Madrid's Santiago Bernabéu Stadium and live broadcast views of the April 2005 La Liga match are expertly spliced and choreographed to assemble a rare, intimate picture of a player immersed in a game that is as much a mental as a physical feat. This approach plunks spectators right in the middle of the action, including the moment when Zidane angrily exits the field after a scuffle. Often described as "voyeuristic," the work pushes past surface-level inquiries into the cult of sports idolatry to plumb the psychological depths of portraiture, with stylistic references to Francisco de Goya and Diego Velázquez.
Since its 2006 debut at the Cannes Film Festival , “Zidane, a 21st century portrait” has screened at multiple cultural venues, but this will be its inaugural showing at the Guggenheim since the museum acquired one of 17 unique versions of the work. (Other editions will also be on view across the country this summer, including at the Pérez Art Museum Miami and the Bass Museum.)
Viewers who get to see the work during its five-week run will experience a rousing, profoundly emotional experience of soccer at a time of dampened enthusiasm for the World Cup and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA). Never an ethical role model — the last tournament, in Qatar, was embroiled in accusations of migrant labor abuse and exploitation — the governing body most recently awarded Donald Trump a newly invented "FIFA Peace Prize" after the warmongering president failed to clinch a Nobel. Those who can set their principles aside will find themselves shelling out historically high prices to attend a match in the US, Mexico, and Canada.
Surely, Gordon and Parreno's work won't take the bitter edge off this year's highly compromised competition. But if it reminds the public of what makes the sport so compelling, so human — its elegance, its fervor — it may inspire a new crop of fans beyond World Cup season.
