Joel Meyerowitz American, b. 6/3/1938

Above a steel swing set in a dry park, a swinger has gone so high that the seat appears above the crossbar. Two legs point straight up into a blue evening sky, feet pressed together; the rest of the body hangs beneath the wooden seat, a glimpse of patterned trunks and bare skin, the arms bent out to grip the chains. Below, on the worn sand, a young man in blue trunks stands barefoot beside an empty swing, his head turned towards the other side of the frame. On the right-hand swing a second young man, in sunglasses and striped trunks, sits with his feet lifted off the ground and looks straight at the camera. Scrubby trees and a brown hill close the background, and under the swings the sand has been worn into long troughs by feet.

Neither of the two below looks up. One stands beside his swing, the other sits on his, and above them the swinger hangs in the air with only the camera looking up. The stunt is all legs. The face, which would tell us whether this is joy or fright, is hidden behind a plank.

I love the economy of showing off among the young. The swinger is upside down for an empty house; the young man on the left has his attention somewhere else; the one in sunglasses meets the lens with a look of studied indifference. I read each of them as building a self in public out of very little: a pair of trunks, a pair of dark glasses, a pair of legs in the air. Meyerowitz catches a moment when bodies are the only language on offer, and all three are speaking at once, none of them to each other.