Alex Prager - Photographs London Wednesday, November 1, 2017 | Phillips

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  • Exhibited

    Alex Prager: Face in the Crowd, Corcoran Gallery of Art, 23 November 2013 - 9 March 2014
    Alex Prager: Face in the Crowd, Saint Louis Art Museum, 17 July - 1 November 2015
    For another

  • Literature

    A. Prager, Face in the Crowd, Washington, D.C.: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 2013, pp. 16-17

  • Catalogue Essay

    'Crowds have always been an interest of mine. It may look like a sea of people, but there are so many interesting stories, all colliding silently.'
    Alex Prager

    Created for her first American museum show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 2013, Alex Prager’s Face in the Crowd series presents a manufactured reality filled with fictional characters, capturing the ambiguous experience of a crowded space. Photographing and filming simultaneously in four studios with several sets, including a beach, a street, an airport and a cinema, the scope of this project is greater than anything Prager has done to date.

    In the work offered here, we are presented with a crowded beach scene. The beige ground is punctuated with bursts of colours that draw us to specific individuals, inviting the viewer to wonder who they are and what happens next.

  • Artist Biography

    Alex Prager

    American • 1979

    Influenced by pulp fiction and cinematic tropes, self-taught photographer and film-maker Alex Prager creates striking, sometimes unnerving images that are filled with a dynamic cast of characters. The hyperreal worlds she creates are packed with human melodrama, like the retro 'damsel in distress' character that regularly makes appearances in Prager's brightly colored and dramatically lit scenes.

    With influences ranging from David Lynch, Alfred Hitchcock, William Eggleston, Cindy Sherman, and Gregory Crewdson, Prager references the vivid aesthetics of mid-twentieth century American cinema and photography. Pairing photographs alongside her films as part of her practice, Prager presents an eerie, alternative world where more questions are asked than answered. 

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ULTIMATE

42

Crowd #3 (Pelican Beach)

2013
Archival pigment print, flush-mounted.
Image/Sheet: 151 x 235.4 cm (59 1/2 x 92 5/8 in.)
Frame: 156 x 240.4 cm (61 3/8 x 94 5/8 in.)

Signed, titled, dated and numbered 4/6 on an artist label accompanying the work.

This work is number 4 from the sold-out edition of 6 + 2 AP. This image exists only in this size and edition.

Estimate
£25,000 - 35,000 

Sold for £40,000

Contact Specialist
Genevieve Janvrin
Co-Head of Photographs, Europe
+44 20 7901 7996

Yuka Yamaji
Co-Head of Photographs, Europe
+44 20 7318 4098

Photographs

London Auction 2 November 2017