Home / Art / Installation

Leandro Erlich Celebrates 10 Years of His Iconic Swimming Pool Installation With an Underwater Selfie

By Linnea Pejcha on October 11, 2026

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Museum Voorlinden (@museumvoorlinden)

Artist Leandro Erlich, the creator of Swimming Pool (2016), has finally taken a selfie with his iconic work. It’s the 10th anniversary of the underwater installation, originally designed by Erlich exclusively for Museum Voorlinden, a contemporary art museum in Wassenaar, near The Hague.

Since its inception, Swimming Pool has drawn viewers in with an immersive, mind-bending experience. This has made the exhibit famous for the underwater selfies many visitors take, capturing the blurring between what the eye sees and what the viewer knows to be real. By stepping inside the pool, visitors become part of the artwork themselves, posing, waving, and interacting with those looking down from above. To celebrate the installation’s milestone birthday, Erlich joined in on the fun, capturing his own underwater selfie in the very artwork that has inspired countless visitors to do the same.

Originally created by Erlich in 1999 during a fellowship at the Glassell School of Art in Houston, Texas, Swimming Pool was later exhibited at the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001, where Erlich represented Argentina. For Museum Voorlinden, Erlich adapted the concept into a permanent artwork designed specifically for the institution.

Erlich’s artistic focus is on using optical illusions to transform ordinary architectural spaces into unexpected situations, encouraging viewers to reconsider the reality around them. In Swimming Pool, viewers initially believe they are looking at a swimming pool full of water. However, a transparent glass panel supporting a shallow layer of water lets them walk along the bottom of the pool without getting wet. Discovering that people can walk beneath the surface challenges their assumptions about what they see and lets the viewer participate in this altered reality.