In the early 1970s and early 1980s, conceptual artist and photographer Larry Sultan donned goggles, an underwater camera, and a handheld flash and repeatedly submerged himself in community pools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Inspired by images found in Red Cross manuals, he captured underwater scenes of parents teaching their children to swim, a lone swimmer treading water, and people holding their breath beneath the surface.
In this pre-digital age, Sultan didn’t know the outcome of a shot until it was developed. When the subject moved, the water distorted the image. The resulting picture is Swimmers (Mac, $65)Filmed between 1978 and 1982, it is both a lyrical, dreamlike dance and a chronicle of American life.
“These photographs were made when I realized that much of my artistic practice was disconnected from my body,” Sultan, who died in 2009, said in a statement from the artist.
“Larry started ‘Swimmers’ out of a very literal fear of the deep sea and drowning,” writes art historian Philip Gefter in his book. The photographer has turned the image into what he describes as “overly physical, sensual and painterly”, while its abstraction makes it feel, in Gechter’s words, “self-conscious and exposed”. Gradually I pushed myself from shallow to deep. swimmer himself.
