Alex Prager
Talk Art special episode with WePresent!!! We meet leading artist Alex Prager at her solo exhibition in London's Cromwell Place, South Kensington. We also chat with WePresent's editor-in-chief Holly Fraser about the support they offer artists and creative minds around the world.
View Alex's video online here: https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/story/alex-prager-part-one-the-mountain/
Alex Prager's new works feature elaborately staged scenes that capture a moment frozen in time. Prager cultivates an uncanny, dreamlike mood throughout her oeuvre\u2014an effect heightened by her use of timeless costuming and richly saturated colors that recall technicolor films, as well as the mysterious or inexplicable happenings she often depicts. Her meticulously crafted photographs are filled with hyperreal details, from signatures on the cast of a high school football player or bandage on the nose of a woman running in terror, to the face in the reflection of a handheld mirror or figure revealed to be a cardboard cutout, firmly locating Prager\u2019s images in the real world and belying the sense of the surreal that often pervades her work.
Although Prager\u2019s immersive, large-scale photographs of crowds are among her best-known work the artist\u2019s newest series evinces a return to portraiture, a genre she first explored early in her practice. Rendered on a smaller, more intimate scale that draws the viewer in, Part One: The Mountain features a series of stripped-down Americana portraits that capture the artist\u2019s subjects in the midst of intense inner turmoil. The inspiration for Part One: The Mountain arose from Prager\u2019s deep desire to examine the myriad emotional states we have all experienced during one of the greatest collective upheavals in modern society. Conceived as psychological portraits, these images visualize a private moment that is understood universally.
Prager\u2019s subjects in Part One: The Mountain can be seen as archetypes, an update of sorts to those found in ancient Greek mythology. The series includes Prager\u2019s quintessential characters, placed in a world that teeters between the fabricated and the familiar. Each image in the series occupies ambiguous territory, leaving space for the viewer to interpret each scene and draw their own conclusions about its narrative.
The title of the exhibition, Part One: The Mountain, is highly symbolic, with the idea of the mountain referenced throughout literature, religion, and psychology as a place where personal revelations, or reckonings, can occur. If the idea of summiting a peak has historically suggested a spiritual pilgrimage or intense physical challenge, it should be remembered that traversing mountainous terrain has often symbolized overcoming obstacles or making hard-won progress. If we have found ourselves metaphorically on the mountain over the course of the past two years, Prager\u2019s newest body of work prompts us to imagine what the world will look like when we finally come back down.
The exhibition is supported by WePresent, WeTransfer\u2019s digital arts platform. On view at Lehmann Maupin's space at Cromwell Place in London from until 5th March 2022, please note that this exhibition is closed on Sundays.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.