Thinking of swimming pools in Southern California conjures up memories of idyllic postwar suburbia, either through events we've lived or those taught to us via the crisp, sunny-blue landscaped world of classic advertisements and Hollywood sets.
101 Museum Drive
Palm Springs, CA 92262
Category: Museums
Region: Riverside County
|
0 user reviews
|
Write A Review |
|
|
Yes, Hollywood stars and their beautiful, adoring families often were pictured relaxing next to their sunken oasis, but really, pool photos were about regular people attaining the perfect, serene American dream, says Ming Fung, director of academic affairs at Southern California Institute of Architecture and a principal founder of L.A. design practice Hodgetts + Fung.
But why specifically Southern California? Fung says to chalk it up to nice weather — something California has in spades — and the ability to easily move from living indoors to outdoors. "That's how we sold real estate in the '50s and '60s," she says. "If you fly over Los Angeles, you can see how many swimming pools there are. ... Many of them were built a long time ago, when the family would just spend the weekend barbecuing."
The advent of cheaper technologies, a fresh crop of designers and the expansion of urban sprawl brought the swimming pool to prominence, a rise captured in "Backyard Oasis: The Swimming Pool in Southern California Photography, 1945-1982." The show opens Sat., Jan. 21, and runs through May 26, at the Palm Springs Art Museum, as part of Pacific Standard Time's look at postwar SoCal art.
Daniell Cornell, exhibition organizer and senior curator/deputy director for art at the museum, says that instead of a linear time line of swimming pool design, the idea was to "look at a whole range of social, political, cultural, economic issues through the lens of [this] particular site. ... The images range from the most idyllic, almost commercial images that you find in the shelter magazines, like House & Garden or Sunset, which are meant to promote Southern California as this great place to come and live, to these darker images of abandoned houses or pools or people who look sort of uncomfortable in the setting that they're in."
Palm Springs is an apt site for the exhibit, as the city embodies these poles. Cornell points out that while Palm Springs is a midcentury design mecca with a long tradition as a weekend getaway for Los Angeles' elite, it also had some bleak years in the '70s and '80s as homeowners moved south to gated communities in Rancho Mirage and Palm Desert. Palm Springs, as well as other cities built during the housing boom, went from being this "idyllic Eden" to a "symbol of everything that's wrong with America and this idea of postwar promise," Cornell says.
The exhibit is split into five sections, each of which explores a different aspect of pools in Southern California life, from "California architecture and design" to "Hollywood and celebrity culture." The section on "bodies of desire," for instance, looks at how the pool relates to sexual awakenings, partly through Bob Mizer's photographs of scantily clad male bodybuilders (he was famously convicted in 1947 of unlawfully sending obscene materials through the U.S. mail). The exhibit also explores the rise of the skateboard movement, during years of drought, when teenagers would hop fences on the hunt for empty pools in which to practice their skills.
Although some ephemera and film clips are featured in the exhibition, the main focus here is photography. Bob Bogard, the museum's director of marketing and communications, argues that this was a time when photography challenged painting as a respectable form of visual art. Gone was the notion that there's no skill involved because everyone knows how to snap a candid shot of friends on the beach.
"It's using the subject matter of the swimming pool, but also about how people used photography," Bogard says. "True photographers didn't just see something and take a picture. They studied the scene."
David Hockney, for example, did this when he broke ground at an exhibit at the L.A. Louver Gallery in 1982 with what curator Cornell calls his "very large, composite Polaroid photographs." (This, by the way, is why this Pacific Standard Time exhibition extends to 1982 while others stop at 1980.) Some of Hockney's work is in this exhibition, as are Julius Schulman's architecture images and Palm Springs photographer Bill Anderson's "vacation" photos of classic Hollywood stars Rock Hudson and Liberace. There are also social commentaries, like New Topographic photographer Lewis Baltz's artistic documentation of everyday backyards during the tract-housing boom, plus street photographer Garry Winogrand's series "Women Are Beautiful," which examines images of the 1960s American woman.
One of Cornell's favorite shots is a Mel Roberts photo of two seemingly carefree boys jumping off their Sherman Oaks roof into the twinkling blue paradise that awaits them below. "There's a kind of insouciance of it," he says. "You just think, yes, that's the childhood that everyone wishes they had."
That's the power of photography — to capture another person's memory and make you wish it were your own.
We can build any pool that you envision and custom-design it to meet your unique preferences. Best of all, Seasonal World provides financing options that make pools affordable for most homeowners. And our warranties give you peace of mind while you enjoy your pool for many years to come.
As with most pool products there is an array of quality manufacturers who produce automatic pool cleaners. Hayward manufactures in-ground pool cleaners that are durable, reliable, and at the forefront of pool cleaning technology. Another excellent manufacturer of pool cleaners for in-ground swimming pools is Polaris. They have been active in the pool cleaner market for more than 40 years and offer a full range of in-ground pool cleaners for all pool styles and designs. Likewise, Pentair manufactures a range of reliable, simple, and convenient automatic in-ground pool cleaners at affordable prices. Finally, another recommended company for in-ground swimming pool cleaners is Zodiac. They are a worldwide company dedicated to developing better automatic pool cleaners.
This process appears to be a very economical process but there is however another water heater which is much more efficient. The device employs the strength of the sunshine in order to heat the swimming pool. Not only is a swim season prolonged, your pool heat expense drastically drops, occasionally disappearing wholly. Slap a few energy cells on the roof and start taking whole benefit of all those daylight hours.
Decide the shape and size of the pool you want to have at your place according to the area you can allocate for the pool. Mostly above ground pools are round or oval in shape, though there are some rectangular shaped pools available.
I remembered when we installed our first pool - our boring backyard turned into a mini-paradise. It was back in the days where there are only few people in Los Angeles.
Now, I would close my pool with a pool cover to protect it from pollution.
Gone are the days...
Find everything you're looking for in your city
Find the best happy hour deals in your city
Get today's exclusive deals at savings of anywhere from 50-90%
Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city
