Public pool, a space that allows you freedom of movement. The earth shook, and the safety you had dissolved. You step outside and feel a freedom that collides with everyone else. Today's security hints at an illusion of safety. Pleasant conversations at the ticket booth. The need to remember the uncrackable code to your locker. Twice to the right, eight times to the left, stop on twenty-six, three times to the right, stay on thirteen. Wrong. Again. Twice to the right, eight times to the left, stop on twenty-six, three times to the right, stay on thirteen. If the turns fail you, you can try multiple times. Then a security guard comes and cuts your lock with heavy bolt cutters. You tell her your name and convince her of your identity. She just smiles. It is you, she believes you. Like a dolphin, in slow motion, you sink to the bottom. You swim crosswise through the pool. Today, it is allowed. No given direction, no boundaries. My lungs are empty. I sink lower. To jump entirely into the water, to rid yourself of all comfort. 

The Public Pools exhibition at Galerie Portheimka presents Anna Fiedlerová's current series of paintings. The core of her artistic practice lies in constructing layered, poetic narratives. Her visual language consciously draws upon the compositional principles and imagery of neo-styles, which the artist subjects to contemporary updates, organically blending them with the visuality of a post-American experience—specifically, New York public pools built as temples with classical columns. The public pool environment serves here not merely as a narrative backdrop, but as a zone reflecting the influence of Americanism on our perception of leisure and shared public space. The fine line between the illusion of safety within an artificially constructed environment and the peril of the depths—where the desire for a liberating union with water constantly collides with the anxiety of losing control and breath—serves as a reflection of a harsh world and the dangers inherent in inhabiting it.  

Curation and architecture: Zzyzx OAS1S