09/04/2026
๐๐ฟ๐ผ๐บ ๐๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ฟ๐ฐ๐ต๐ถ๐๐ฒ: "The Swimmer," previously on view at FLAG June 6-August 9, 2024.
John Cheeverโs 1964 short story, after which FLAG's exhibition was titled, follows Neddy Merrill, and his adventure to swim home by way of his affluent neighborโs swimming pools. What begins as a carefree midsummer Sunday devolves as Neddyโs life and his grip on reality disappear, pool by pool, the closer he comes to finishing his journey and returning homeโฆ whether the journey lasts only a day or many years.
Cheever's story explores alcoholism, grandiosity, loss of innocence, selective memory, privilege, and s*xuality within mid-century Americaโs changing perception of its own relationship to class. Similarly, FLAGโs exhibition visually highlighted the crumbling American dream, set against the glittering backdrop of a string of swimming pools. The ninth floor featured a variety of painting, photography, and sculpture in which the body is suggested, but not shown, positioning the viewer as the โswimmerโ in space. FLAG's tenth floor gallery almost exclusively depicted the body in water, locating the pool as an intimate, self-contained site for mystery and experimentation.
In an interview with designboom, FLAG Director Jonathan Rider said, "The Swimmer feels, for me, relevant and urgent today, around sixty years after it was written. Life not living up to expectations will never not feel relevant. What it means to try to connect with others will never not feel relevant. What it means for dreams or expectations to disappoint (yourself and others) will never not feel relevant. The Swimmer is a deceptively simple narrative that touches on... evergreen issues that many of the artists in the exhibition are addressing, directly or otherwise, in their work.โ
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Image: Installation view of "The Swimmer" at The FLAG Art Foundation, 2024. Photography by Steven Probert.
