Alex Prager's influences range from Hollywood cinema, to experimental films, popular culture, and street photography. The city of Los Angeles is referenced as both a subject and an object of enquiry throughout Alex Prager's photography. Melodrama and real emotion are fused together in the artist's images. Her photographs take note of the expectations of Hollywood fame and glamour, as well as the discontent of the city's inhabitants.
Read MoreEven in very early work, Prager hinted at undercurrents of brutality and violence (particularly towards women) in mid-20th century American cinema. Julie (2007) shows a woman in a muted, canary yellow two-piece suit crouching down at the side of a road, while a black bird appears to dive towards her. The stark contrast between highly stylised, artificial beauty and cold realism adds a sense of dark comedy to real emotion within Prager's work.
During an exhibition at the Michael Hoppen Gallery in London in 2008, Prager received a high volume of questions concerning the narratives behind her still photography. In response to this fascination, Prager decided to add an additional dimension to her photographs by turning them into motion-picture films.
Prager's directorial debut Despair (2010) featured Bryce Dallas Howard, the eldest daughter of legendary Hollywood filmmaker Ron Howard. The short, four-minute film tells the story of a woman who, after receiving some news from a phone call, takes her life by jumping off a New York-style apartment building. Premiering at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2010, Prager described her film as a 'full-sensory version' of her photographs—the use of climactic music, long, panoramic shots and special effects adding an extra layer of theatricality and melodrama to the narrative.
Starting with Despair (2010), Prager has directed eight films including Emmy award-winning, Touch of Evil (2011) with actress Jessica Chastain. In 2018, Silver Lake, a major exhibition at The Photographer's Gallery in London, UK, and a publication of the same name, celebrated and documented Prager's work to date.
In 2019, Prager presented an exhibition of new work, including a new film, Play the Wind (2019), at Lehmann Maupin in New York. In the 8 minute film the protagonists, Dimitri Chamblas (dean of the Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at the California Institute of the Arts) and Riley Keough (American Honey and The Girlfriend Experience), lead a journey throughout Los Angeles.
Alex Prager is most widely known for her images of crowds. Face in the Crowd is Prager's meditation on the heightened emotion and chaos of being part of a crowd of people. Prager directed over 250 actors dressed in meticulously chosen costumes, hair and makeup. Each image abides by a different cultural memory.
Shot on a Los Angeles soundstage in early 2013, the busy crowds gather at airport terminals, hotel lobbies, beaches, movie theatres, and other public spaces. Prager explored similar themes within a film of the same name starring Elizabeth Banks. Presented alongside Prager's still photography at Lehmann Maupin in 2014, the film is an immersive artwork, a three-channel video installation, with three monologues told in three different voiceovers.
