Adel Abdessemed

(*1971, FR)
Coup de tête, 2012
Bronze
540 × 348 × 218 cm

Zinedine Zidane headbutting Marco Materazzi during the 2006 World Cup final immediately made global headlines. Abdessemed’s sculpture fixes in bronze the moment immediately after contact, as Zidane’s antagonist starts to fall backward. The monument proposed by Abdessemed is paradoxical, insofar as it exalts a moment of lossand abandon. There is Zidane’s loss of self-control and Materazzi’s loss of balance. But there is also something else: in a sport where every movement of the body is not only governed by extremely precise rules, but also broadcast to screens all around the world, the sudden irruption of a forbidden movement has become an iconic moment, a consecration of the transgression of the rules. As in every tragedy, the protagonist is struck by an unpredictable shot, though the hardest fall was that of Zidane, who at that moment lost his heroic status. 

Presented by the Grand Théâtre de Genève