Alex Prager exhibition Silver Lake Drive at Foam

Alex Prager's work is inspired by films, street photography, pop culture, her personal experiences and her surroundings. The noted photographer uses stylistic elements familiar from early cinematic genres such as film noir, thriller, melodrama and crime fiction. Women mostly play the leading role in her work. The flawless perfection of their stylized beauty is as seductive as it is frightening. The films and photographs in which they figure often possess dark undertones - ranging from lurking fear to traces of violence and disaster.

Prager's work is rooted in the photographic tradition of William Eggleston, Diane Arbus and Cindy Sherman, all masters of freezing the indeterminate everyday moment. Prager's oeuvre consists of fiercely directed images in large format and rich colors. Her photographs can be seen as "single frame narratives" in which an enigmatic story unfolds within the frame. Her films often lack a clear storyline. Together, the works tell a bizarre, perpetual unreality.

Jeff Vespa

Alex Prager
Alex Prager is self-taught. Her career took off after her work was featured in the exhibition New Photography at MoMA in New York. Since then, her work has been exhibited worldwide in several leading galleries and museums. Photographs by Prager have been published in Foam Magazine, New York Times Magazine, American Vogue, W Magazine and Art in America, among others. Her work is included in the collection of several museums, including Foam, MoMA in New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Kunsthaus Zurich, and Moderna Museet in Stockholm.