Alex Prager (b. 1979, Los Angeles; lives and works in Los Angeles) is a photographer and filmmaker who creates elaborately staged scenes that draw inspiration from a wide range of influences and references, including Hollywood cinema, experimental films, popular culture, and street photography. She deliberately casts and stages all of her works, merging past and contemporary sources to create a sense of ambiguity. Her familiar yet uncanny images depict worlds that synthesize fiction and reality. Each photograph captures a moment frozen in time, inviting the viewer to “complete the story” and speculate about the narrative context. Prager’s work often makes the viewer aware of the voyeuristic nature of photography and film, establishing the uneasy feeling of intruding upon a potentially private moment. In her images of both crowds and individuals, she examines conflicting emotions of claustrophobia and isolation, revealing an ominous and perpetual anxiety. The highly choreographed nature of her photographs and films exposes the way images are constructed and consumed in our media-saturated society. This puts her work in direct conversation with artists engaged in the tradition of staged photography, such as Cindy Sherman, Gregory Crewdson, and Thomas Demand.

 Review

Solo Exhibitions

2019
“Alex Prager: Silver Lake Drive”, Foam Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
”Compulsion”, Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow

2018
“Alex Prager: Silver Lake Drive”, Musée des Beaux-Arts Le Locle, Switzerland
“Alex Prager: Silver Lake Drive”, The Photographers’ Gallery, London
Lehmann Maupin Gallery, Hong Kong

2017
”Single-channel 7: Journeys Into Peripheral Worlds - Alex Prager / La Petite Mort”, Des Moines Art Center, Iowa

2016
"La Grande Sortie", Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY

2015
”Alex Prager: Face in the Crowd”, Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis
Galerie des Galeries, Paris
Lehmann Maupin Gallery, Hong Kong
Istanbul ’74, Istanbul

2014
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
The Arts Club, London
“Face in the Crowd”, M+B Gallery, Los Angeles
“Face in the Crowd”, Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York

2013
“Face in the Crowd”, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC
“Mise-en-scène”, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA

2012
“Compulsion”, Foam Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
“Compulsion”, M+B Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
“Compulsion”, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, NY
“Compulsion”, Michael Hoppen Gallery, London

2010
“Week-end”, Michael Hoppen Gallery, London
“Week-end”, M+B Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
“Despair”, Project Gallery, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, NY
“Week-end”, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, NY

2009
“The Big Valley”, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York

2008
“The Big Valley”, Michael Hoppen Gallery, London

2007
“Polyester”, Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA