We Three Things | Water Colors

Culture
Design
By LEANNE SHAPTON
July 16, 2010, 11:26 am



It is too hot. My constant craving is to be submerged in a cool pool: the sound of kicking overhead, of bubbles and muffled splashing. Everything is slower and suspended underwater. I spend as much time as possible in the deep end, and when I’m not there, I seek out that submersible summer feeling. Watch this 1993 music video directed by Jem Cohen, and feel your body temperature drop.


Courtesy of Blaise Cepis

Descending the stairs to Dashwood Books on Bond Street is always refreshing, especially when the A.C. and stacks of new photography books beckon. Last week I thumbed through Blaise Cepis’s “Lemonade and Bugspray,” a collection of photos taken during the summers of 2008 and 2009. By the last picture I felt sticky and sunburned, and I missed my friends. The book smells like summer spirit! The artists Cepis, John Codling and Craig Damrauer started the Scratch Press earlier this year. It publishes work that, Cepis explains, “makes us just plain old happy.” Dashwood carries its ebullient limited-editions for $20 each.



© Pipilotti Rist/Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Pipilotti Rist, Video still from “Sip My Ocean,” 1996

Pipilotti Rist is in touch with her inner porpoise. The choreography of her camera in her psychedelically anatomic video installations is all flow. In my favorite piece, “Sip My Ocean,” she sings an urgent rendition of Chris Issak’s “Wicked Game” while cross-processed swimmers kick, drip and glide underwater. It’s a perfect metaphor for heady summer infatuation. The piece is part of “Partit Amistós — Sentiments Electrònics,” a solo show of Rist’s work at Fundacio Joan Miro in Barcelona, Spain, until November.

Leanne Shapton

For gin-clear vision underwater, I swear by my Swedish goggles. Look closely at footage of Olympic swimmers behind their blocks: most wear a variation on the technology developed by the Swedish company Malmsten, whose eyepieces fit closely and comfortably into the socket for a foam-free, watertight fit. The straps and bridge pieces are essentially rubber bands and kitchen string, which is why they’re nice and cheap. Order an amber, teal or rose-colored pair at circlecityswimwear.com and let your primordial instincts (whip)kick in.




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