Introduction

The Philharmonie de Paris opens its Olympic season with Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno. A sound and visual experience plunges visitors into the heart of a multi-dimensional and resolutely poetic football match.

In 2005, artists Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno collaborated on a film shot in real time during a match between Real Madrid and Villarreal CF. Using 17 synchronized cameras spread across Madrid's Santiago Bernabéu stadium, they focused the lens solely on Zinedine Zidane. 

Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait is an attempt to embody the famous football player by magnifying his stare, his breath, the movement of his foot. Pushing to an extreme the kind of attention that has made Zidane a media icon. The air quivers. The physical space of his presence and his exertion is inseparable from the shift, move by move, gliding and charged, of the electronic and photographic images. 

The work is presented on 17 large screens that are suspended in the exhibition space, each broadcasting the view of one of 17 cameras. The projections are accompanied by a sound system, subtly set in space by sound engineer Nicolas Becker along with an original score by Scottish post-rock band Mogwai.

Directors: Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno
Director of Photography: Darius Khondji
Original music: Mogwai
Sound design: Nicolas Becker
This project has been awarded the Cultural Olympiad label.

Douglas Gordon & Philippe Parreno
Zidane, un portrait du XXIe siècle
Philharmonie de Paris
221 Avenue Jean Jaurés
75019 Paris
October 5, 2023 – January 7, 2024
www.philharmoniedeparis.fr