Douglas Gordon

Gagosian is pleased to announce Magic is sometimes very close to nothing at all, an exhibition of works by Douglas Gordon centered on Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (2006), a double-screen film produced in collaboration with Philippe Parreno that follows legendary French footballer Zinédine Zidane over the course of a single match (the presentation’s title quotes the subject’s final line in the film). Magic, which also includes neon and vinyl text works by Gordon, opens at the gallery’s Beverly Hills location on July 16, marking twenty-five years since the artist’s 2001 survey at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. 

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.