Alex Prager
Revelling in the juxtaposition of situational awkwardness and cinematic perfection.
The room is rectangular with high walls. The space is dully lit, apart from the works. The ambience is clinical. The National Gallery of Victoria’s exhibition of Californian photographer Alex Prager includes a large collection of photographs and films from 2007’s Polyester series up until 2013’s A Face in the Crowd series.
Prager’s photographs are like a vacuum to the eye; windows to a world of candied hyper-colour and gloss, hung in narrative groups. Upon closer inspection, Prager’s compositions consistently feature a certain kind of woman in a range of awkward situations. The woman embodies Hollywood flawlessness; with her false lashes, 1960’s wig, trim figure and tailored outfit. The situations the subject finds herself in are often precarious, ambiguous and slightly chilling. It seems Alex Prager revels in the juxtaposition of situational awkwardness and cinematic perfection.
Prager uses the directorial mode to construct her photographs, and cites noir filmmaking as a major influence for her lighting techniques. Her muse, and the location of most of her shoots, is her home, the city of Los Angeles.
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“The city’s been a huge influence… it has this strange light, and a kind of promise of perfection. There’s a sense of everything being cinematically perfect; with the blue sky and the birds. A lot of people go there because they have dreams to change their lives, or to become something that they’re maybe not… with that comes a kind of underbelly of seediness or unease, paired with the juxtaposition of this beauty and perfection” (Prager, 2014).
It was the cinematic quality of her work that prompted audiences to ask Prager what would happen in the next scene. Prager responded by creating her first film in 2010 titled Despair, a work she says was inspired by The Red Shoes and The Wizard of Oz. This medium must have suited her well, because shortly after in 2012 Prager made her second film Le Petite Mort, before embarking on her most recent film for her Face in the Crowd series.
Although the immaculately adorned woman continues to feature as protagonist in Prager’s Face in the Crowd series, the situational theme differs to her former works. As the title of the series suggests; the Face in the Crowd images take place amongst a crowd of strangers, and represents, through facial expression and body language, the disconnection one can feel in a crowd, although surrounded by other people. An unexpected intensity triggered by the physical closeness. The variety of outfits the cast are dressed in connote the many individual narratives taking place all at once. Prager has been vocal about the autobiographical nature of the series stating:
“I had this personal thing with crowds for years, and it was getting worse… just having this really visceral reaction, an overwhelming sense of just being completely out of control,” Prager says.
Alex Prager is an exciting artist to watch as she continues to explore the intangible through film and photography. The Hollywood allure of her work will undoubtedly attract a new kind of audience to puzzle at the uncanny, and hopefully, to take a deeper look.
