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Alex Prager

Hong Kong

Jan 18–Mar 17, 2018

Installation view of Alex Prager at Lehmann Maupin Hong Kong

12 Pedder Street

Central, Hong Kong

Lehmann Mapuin is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Alex Prager. The Los Angeles-based artist returns to Hong Kong with her signature style of theatrical and meticulously staged photography and film, as well as her first exhibited sculpture. In her most recent series, Prager manipulates scale and dimension to challenge our understanding of the boundary between fiction and reality. The gallery will host an opening reception on Thursday, January 18, from 6-8 PM, at the Pedder Building.

Those familiar with Prager’s work will recognize elements that recall past series, such as Face in the Crowd (2013), in which her compositions highlighted the contrast between crowded public spaces and a lone heroine. These latest works push the theatrical narrative potential of her prior series. The imagery lays bare the artifice in its creation, achieved through impossible, contrived viewpoints, layering of incongruent scenes—such as a rainy day on top of a sunny one—and other formal and technical controls that challenge the assumed naturalism of photography and film.

Installation view of Alex Prager at Lehmann Maupin Hong Kong
Installation Views: 1 of 3
Photograph by Alex Prager

Alex Prager

Star Shoes, 2017

Photograph by Alex Prager

Alex Prager

Hand Model, 2017

Photograph by Alex Prager

Alex Prager

Cats, 2017

Installation view of Alex Prager at Lehmann Maupin Hong Kong
Installation Views: 1 of 3
Photograph by Alex Prager

Alex Prager

Shopping Plaza 1, 2015

Sculpture by Alex Prager

Alex Prager

WOMAN, 2017

Photograph by Alex Prager

Alex Prager

Anaheim, 2017

Photograph by Alex Prager

Alex Prager

Hawkins Street, 2017

Photograph by Alex Prager

Alex Prager

See’s Candies, Payless, Supercuts 1, 2015

Film still by Alex Prager

Alex Prager

Applause, 2016

Portrait of Alex Prager

Alex Prager (b. 1979, Los Angeles, CA; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) is an American artist, director and screenwriter based in Los Angeles. Prager is known for her uncanny images and films that blur the line between artifice and reality to explore the human condition. Prager has spent over two decades honing her signature style, which draws on traditional movie making techniques from golden-era period styles (like film noir and Technicolor), classical mythology, and the allegorical works of Dutch Renaissance painters Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Brugel. Over time, large-scale productions have become synonymous with her work.

Working simultaneously across film, photography, and sculpture, Prager constructs highly emotional moments that feel like a fabricated memory or dream. Her distinctive use of archetypes, everyday objects, humor, and allegory—along with her signature technicolor facades—allow her to explore dark and complex topics. Existential concerns are central to her practice, including collective and individual identities and the impact of technology on society. Like the psychological works of artists including Alfred Hitchcock, Edward Hopper, Pipilotti Rist, August Sanders, and Bill Viola, Prager’s work invites the viewer to contemplate the human experience by revealing that the extraordinary lurks within the ordinary.

Learn about the artist