The Swimming Pool

Leandro Erlich's 'The Swimming Pool', produced for the opening of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa in 2004, is a life-size outdoor pool built into the museum's central courtyard — except that the water is only a shallow layer suspended on a glass plate, beneath which visitors can walk and gaze up through the ripples. Those on the deck above and those below exchange gazes through the illusory surface, each side completing the work for the other. Now a permanent highlight of the Kanazawa collection, the piece is the most recognisable statement of Erlich's lifelong investigation of everyday optical deception.

Exhibition Venue

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art

Kanazawa, Japan

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