Wayne Gonzales features in ‘The Swimmer’
Wayne Gonzales features in The Swimmer, an expansive group exhibition at The FLAG Art Foundation inspired by John Cheever’s 1964 short story of the same title.
The exhibition confuses time and unfolds through a series of disappearances in bodies of water—in pools, lakes, and oceans—through works that concern loss and losing oneself. Navigating themes inherent in The Swimmer and Cheever’s book, including alcoholism, grandiosity, loss of innocence, selective memory, privilege and sexuality, the exhibition trains an eye to the crumbling of an American dream, set against the glittering backdrop of a string of swimming pools.
The ninth floor of the exhibition features a variety of painting, photography, and sculpture in which the body is suggested, but not depicted, positioning the viewer as the “swimmer” in space. The exhibition’s tenth floor focuses almost exclusively on the figure—the body in water—and explores night swimming, using the pool as an intimate, self-contained site for mystery and experimentation.
Artists include Wayne Gonzales, 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, Jim Hodges, Reggie Burrows Hodges, Ludovic Knoth, Amy Park, Jack Pierson, Alessandro Raho, Ed Ruscha, Melanie Schiff, Cindy Sherman, Cynthia Talmadge, Deanna Templeton, Paul Thek, Stephen Truax, and others.
