ED RUSCHA, POOL #2, from the Pools Series, 1968/1997 (Courtesy:the artist and Gagosian)
Now on view at The FLAG Art Foundation is The Swimmer, an expansive group exhibition inspired by John Cheever’s 1964 short story of the same name. Artists include Henni Alftan, Leonard Baby, Conrad Bakker, Burt Barr, Dike Blair, Martin Boyce, Katherine Bradford, Vija Celmins, Zoe Crosher, Nancy Diamond, Elmgreen & Dragset, Tony Feher, Robert Gober, Wayne Gonzalez, Jim Hodges, Reggie Burrows Hodges, Ludovic Nkoth, Amy Park, Jack Pierson, Alessandro Raho, Calida Rawles, Ed Ruscha, Melanie Schiff, Cindy Sherman, Cynthia Talmadge, Deanna Templeton, Paul Thek, Stephen Truax.
Published in The New Yorker in the wake of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, The Swimmer is emblematic of mid-century America’s changing perception of its own relationship to class, idealism, and failure, evergreen issues as relevant today as sixty years ago. The film based on the book was released in 1968, starring Burt Lancaster as Cheever’s protagonist, Neddy Merrill, who embarks on the novel adventure to swim home by way of his affluent neighbor’s swimming pools.
ELIZABETH GLAESSNER, To be titled, 2024 (Courtesy: the Artist and Perrotin, Photography by Guillaume Ziccarelli)
What begins as a carefree midsummer Sunday devolves into something altogether different and nefarious; Neddy’s life and his grip on reality disappear, pool by pool, the closer he comes to finishing his journey and returning home… whether that’s the same day or perhaps many years later.
FLAG’s exhibition similarly confuses time and unfolds through a series of disappearances in bodies of water — pools, lakes, and oceans –through serial works that concern loss and losing oneself. Navigating themes inherent in The Swimmer and Cheever’s broader oeuvre, including alcoholism, grandiosity, loss of innocence, selective memory, privilege, sexuality, among others, the exhibition trains an eye to the crumbling of an American dream, set against the glittering backdrop of a string of swimming pools.
FROM TOP: MELANIE SCHIFF, Perfect Square, 2006 (Courtesy: the artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles); PAUL THEK, Untitled (diver), 1969 (Courtesy:Jonathan W. Anderson, the Estate of Paul Thek, Pace Gallery, Galerie Buchholz, and Mai 36 Galerie)
Each of the artists in The Swimmer take on the themes of Cheever’s text in unique ways attuned to their overall practices; images from Ed Ruscha’s iconic photoset, Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass, 1976, documents various pools at budget motels in Los Angeles and Los Vegas. While their turquoise, highly chlorinated, and swimmer-less waters suggest escape and leisure, their concrete realities are somewhat less idyllic.
ZOE CROSHER, Where Natalie Wood Disappeared off Catalina Island, 2008 (Courtesy: the artist)
Like Ruscha, Zoe Crosher’s LA-LIKE: Transgressing the Pacific, 2008-2010, disrupts Hollywood’s perfected veneer through a series of seven large format photographic prints. Here, imagery of beautiful if not innocuous seascapes run counter to each image’s title, which presents unseen information: Where Natalie Wood Disappeared off Catalina Island or Where Norman Maine Disappeared at Laguna Beach from the 1954 version of A Star is Born. Each picture was shot at the corresponding time of their either real or invented subject’s disappearances.
Though the theme of The Swimmer may have some heavy undertones, the refreshing pools and waterscapes still make the show a great escape from the summer heat.
CLOCKWISE TOP LEFT: ALESSANDRO RAHO, L.A. Swimming Pool, 2006 (Courtesy: Private Collection, the artist, Alison Jacques, London); HENNI ALFTAN, The Swimmer, 2023 (Courtesy: ©Henni Alftan, the artist, Karma); DIKE BLAIR, Untitled, 2024 (Courtesy: ©Dike Blair. Courtesy the Artist and Karma); KATHERINE BRADFORD, Fog By the Pool, 2024 (Courtesy: the artist and Canada, New York)
