Guggenheim New York to Exhibit “Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait” for 2026 World Cup

New York, NY — May 20, 2026 — There is a specific kind of madness currently descending on New York. With the 2026 World Cup matches finally landing in our backyard, the city is vibrating with a predictable, high-octane frenzy.

But if you head uptown to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed spiral of the Guggenheim, you’ll find a much quieter, almost eerie tribute to the beautiful game.

From June 11 through July 19, the museum is bringing back Zidane, a 21st century portrait (2006). It’s a 90-minute film that doesn’t care about the ball, the score, or the broadcast hype. It only cares about one man: Zinédine Zidane.

Frankly, it’s a bit of a miracle this is being shown now. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the film’s creation by artists Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno, and it’s the first time since the museum acquired the work in 2006 that they’ve actually put the two-channel projection on public display.

For ninety minutes—the exact duration of a standard match—the cameras stay fixed on Zidane during a 2005 Real Madrid vs. Villarreal game. While the rest of the world follows the action, Gordon and Parreno’s seventeen synchronized cameras track every beads of sweat, every frustrated grimace, and every moment of stillness from the legendary midfielder.

It’s an exhausting experience, but in the best way possible. As curator Nat Trotman puts it in the announcement, the installation “plunges visitors into the world of the soccer player.” It’s less about the sport and more about the sheer force of will required to exist as a global icon under a microscope. I mean, let’s be real—watching a man breathe for an hour and a half in high definition is a hell of a lot more intimate than anything you’ll see on a standard ESPN broadcast.

The technical setup at the Peter B. Lewis Theater is what makes this iteration “Collection in Focus” special. You’ve got two streams of video running simultaneously. One is the theatrical cut we’ve seen in arthouse cinemas; the other is raw, unedited footage from just one of those seventeen cameras.

Sometimes they sync up. Sometimes they don’t. It’s a deliberate “doubling” effect that Gordon loves to play with, highlighting how we consume celebrities as both real people and mass-produced images. They even splice in bits of the original live television broadcast to remind you that, yes, a game is actually happening somewhere in the background.

The Guggenheim isn’t just jumping on the World Cup bandwagon here. They’ve had a long-standing relationship with both Gordon and Parreno—artists whose work usually leans toward the surreal or the uncanny. By placing this film in a UNESCO World Heritage site during the biggest sporting event on the planet, they’re forcing a conversation about art and athletics that feels strangely overdue.

If you’re in town for the matches, or if you’re just looking for a ninety-minute reprieve from the screaming fans outside, this is where you go. It’s a chance to see Zidane not as a highlight reel, but as a human being caught in the machinery of modern fame. It’s beautiful, it’s a little bit boring in that profound “art” way, and it’s absolutely worth the trip uptown.