‘Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait’, by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno

The nature of portraits, the quiet power of film, and role of football as an form of art

Ed. This piece was first published at cityofsound.com on March 4th, 2007, and an edited verison was subsequently published in the book ‘On Perfection: An Artists’ Symposium’, by Jo Longhurst (ed.) (Intellect Books, 2013)

I’ve had a sporadic relationship with Douglas Gordon’s work, yet it’s had a profound effect on me when I’ve seen it, heard it. Maybe I’ve been lucky enough to have experienced his greatest hits, the two works based around Alfred Hitchcock; ’24 Hour Psycho’, in which the film is slowed down to play over a duration of 24 hours, and ‘Feature Film’, in which a zoom onto a conductor’s hands is foregrounded, guiding the performance of Bernard Herrmann’s soundtrack, while the movie itself is footnoted, diminished.

Both are fascinating, effective studies of time, movement, image and sound. His other work has been described as less successful, yet there was no way I was going to miss his collaboration with French artist Philippe Parreno, ‘Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait’.

This is an utterly overwhelming piece. The ultimate time and motion study, it’s been described many times since its debut…