Installation view of The Swimmer, 2024, FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY. Photo: Steven Probert.
Burt Barr and Tony Feher are included in The Swimmer, an expansive group exhibition at the FLAG Art Foundation inspired by John Cheever’s 1964 short story of the same name. Published in The New Yorker in the wake of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, John Cheever’s story 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.
Navigating themes inherent in The Swimmer and Cheever’s broader oeuvre, including alcoholism, grandiosity, loss of innocence, selective memory, privilege, sexuality, etc., the exhibition at FLAG trains an eye to the crumbling of an American dream, set against the glittering backdrop of a string of swimming pools. The show’s ninth floor closely aligns itself with Cheever’s narrative and 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 tenth floor focuses almost exclusively on the figure—the body in water—and explores night swimming, locating the pool as an intimate, self-contained site for mystery and experimentation.
The Swimmer at FLAG Art Foundation is curated by Jonathan Rider. To learn more, click here.