It feels like it’s maybe more than 25 years since I saw the acclaimed work of Douglas Gordon at the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Los Angeles. I was staying with my friend Walt over on 6th and Sante Fe or somewhere so close to MoCA we could have conceivably walked. Drove though. Later on, when I got together with Ms. Champion, who never ever calls herself that, we would walk on balmy evenings from our place on Sunset to MoCA to enjoy the fun on the Sculpture Plaza. Saw Cut Chemist there on a KCRW night I think. Who knows. Who knows whether it was even called the Sculpture Plaza back then. So, yeah, one hungover morning we all headed over to MoCA to see Douglas Gordon’s traveling show, featuring In Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake) (1997) - the one where he projects William Friedkin's Exorcist (1973) and Henry King's The Song of Bernadette (1943) on either side of a semi transparent screen so that they can be viewed simultaneously. Two chimerical films about adolescent girls beset by gods and beasts rendered further unsettling in Gordon’s setting.
Gordon had previous form, in 1993, there was ‘24 Hour Psycho’. Well you can guess… Hitchcock classic Psycho slowed down to last 24 hours… That’s a lot of popcorn at the multiplex, In Artforum in 2007, romancing the work, Daniel Birnbaum wrote, “The art world has yet to recover.” Has it even yet?
Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait, at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery until October 20th is directed by Gordon and Algerian-born artist Philippe Parreno. Produced at the height of French footballer’s Zinédine Zidane’s power, the film focuses on his performance during a single game between his team, Real Madrid and Villareal on 23 April 2005.
Gordon and Parreno’s ambitious collaboration uses footage shot by seventeen synchronised film and video cameras placed around the stadium, tracking Zidane in real time. Focusing steadfastly on the iconic player even as the central action of the football moves elsewhere. The footage is edited together with excerpts from the Spanish television commentary.
Had they chosen the 2006 World Cup final, it would have been a much shorter film. Zidane was given a red card and sent off for headbutting, weirdly, in a weird style like he wasn’t used to headbutting, Marco Materazzi of Italy. A moment of madness that remains one of the most ignobly infamous in World Cup history.
The movie soundtrack is notably brilliant too for its chorus of 72,000 fans, its Spanish commentators and its intemperate intrusions from post-rock Scots, Mogwai. Their music is emotional and disruptive. Like Zidane himself. Like Gordon and Parreno’s movie, it’s all surprisingly great.
Essential Information
Main image by David Ruddell from wikicommons
Zidane, a 21st century portrait.
Wolverhampton Art Gallery
Until 20 October
Gallery website is here
Some content here repurposed from Laura Page's Wolverhampton PR Dep't press release
