Pacific Standard Time: Backyard Oasis

The swimming pool is one of the most idiosyncratic Californian settings; dug in, saturating stages for “sub-culture rituals and clandestine desires,” so understandably a magnet for artistic interpretation. It’s photography from 1945 to 1982 that Backyard Oasis focusses on, it being the “primary vehicle for embodying the polar emotions of consumer optimism and Cold War fears.” The images capture this pool life perfectly, from Craig Stecyk’s original Dogtown and Z-Boy documentations to the perfectly absurd John Baldessari with Legs Moustache and still-life landscapes of Ed Ruscha – all showing at Palm Springs Art Museum.