DOUGLAS GORDON

The exhibition also coincides with the FIFA World Cup 2026, which is being hosted in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, with some matches being played in Los Angeles. Gordon, a lifelong football fan, believes in this event’s unifying power, and in “the beautiful game” as a locus for the hopes and dreams of players and supporters alike. In football, joy and belief can be transformed instantly into heartache and despair, a transition that resonates deeply with Gordon’s key themes of ecstasy and pain, good and evil, life and death.

Zidane exists in seventeen different versions, many of which reside in institutional collections including those of the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Shot on seventeen cameras, it follows Zidane in real time over the course of a match between his Spanish club Real Madrid and Villarreal at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid on April 23, 2005. Capturing its subject from multiple angles, Zidane presents an intimate portrait of a superstar, recording his movements even when the action unfolds elsewhere. Edited together with TV commentary and the roar of 72,000 spectators, it is soundtracked by Scottish post-rock band Mogwai, whose music adds another layer of cinematic intensity. Zidane is also being shown this summer at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Bass Museum, Miami; Pérez Art Museum Miami; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, as well as at various film festivals.