Douglas Gordon’s Zidane Film Returns to Los Angeles as World Cup Programming Spreads
A landmark video work built around one of soccer’s most closely watched figures is heading to Beverly Hills. Next month, Gagosian Beverly Hills will open an exhibition of works by Scottish artist Douglas Gordon (b. 1966), anchored by Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, the 2006 double-screen film made with French artist Philippe Parreno (b. 1964).
The exhibition arrives as FIFA World Cup 2026 unfolds across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, with matches scheduled in Los Angeles. That timing gives the show a sharper edge: Gordon and Parreno’s film does not treat sport as spectacle alone, but as a study in attention, fatigue, and the strange intimacy of watching a public figure under pressure.
Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait follows French footballer Zinédine Zidane (b. 1972) in real time during a match between Real Madrid and Villarreal at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium on April 23, 2005. Shot on 17 cameras, the work layers television commentary, the roar of 72,000 spectators, and a soundtrack by Mogwai into a tightly controlled portrait that catches Zidane even when play has moved elsewhere on the pitch.
The film exists in 17 versions and is held in major institutional collections, including the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. This summer, it is also on view in New York at the Guggenheim Museum, in Miami at the Bass Museum and Pérez Art Museum, and in Minneapolis at the Walker Art Center, underscoring how widely the work has circulated within museum culture.
Gagosian’s presentation extends beyond the film. It will also include Meaning and Location (1990), an early vinyl work, and Tears are not Enough (2023), a neon piece. Several text works in the exhibition have been rendered in languages spoken across Los Angeles, including Armenian, Farsi, Korean, and the Indigenous American Chumash language.
The opening also marks 25 years since Gordon’s 2001 survey at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In that sense, the exhibition reads as both a return and a recalibration: a major work from the early 21st century placed back into a city now preparing for another global sporting moment.
