The show includes new configurations of Radioactive Cats and Revenge of the Goldfish, plus Skoglund’s first use of wallpaper.
By Adam Schrader
Sandy Skoglund, who helped trail-blaze surrealistic staged environment photography in the 1980s and 1990s, has debuted an immersive work based on one of her photographs in a solo show at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio.
The exhibit “Sandy Skoglund: Enchanting Nature” runs through Feb. 1, 2026, and thematically tackles the resilience of nature and its clashes with the human-built world.
The never-before-exhibited work, Fresh Hybrid, is an installation version of her 2008 photograph that depicts a human family and their dog walking through a forest-like environment in which the trees have humanoid legs and also appearing to be walking. On the forest floor is fallen foliage, made from colorful pipe cleaners.
It is one of three such installations in the show. The other two are Radioactive Cats (1980) and Revenge of the Goldfish (1981), which are considered two of the most influential images of the staged photography movement and were included in the 1981 Whitney Biennial. Both of those early installations have been publicly exhibited at various venues.
“Their juxtaposition in the galleries reveals some elements associated with the evolution of Skoglund’s art over time. Both Cats and Goldfish incorporate a two-color palette: Cats being green and gray, Goldfish being orange and blue,” McNay head of curatorial affairs René Paul Barilleaux told Urgent Matter in an emailed interview.
“Fresh Hybrid, however, has an expanded palette, evident in the three ‘human’ figures, dancing trees, carpet-like floor covering and rich blue sky/wall. Also, Hybrid is not wall-bound in the way that both Cats and Goldfish are. Hybrid is viewable from all sides, and its composition is less rigid than other of Skoglund’s installations.”
In previous stagings of the Radioactive Cats and Revenge of the Goldfish installations, viewers were previously not able to walk among the art because of their wall-bound nature. In their presentation at the McNay, Skoglund has configured them in a new way, providing a pathway through each that allows viewers to actually be immersed in the artwork.
“Thinking about the age of selfies and social media posts, the artist wanted to provide a way that viewers can capture themselves—their families, their friends—within a Sandy Skoglund artwork,” Barilleaux said.
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Image: Installation view of Fresh Hybrid at McNay Art Museum. Photo courtesy of Sandy Skoglund