Lehmann Maupin is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work, including a new film, Play the Wind (2019; 8 minutes), by Alex Prager. Well established for her genre-defying approach to image making that timelessly combines eras, cultural references, and personal experiences, the photographs and the film debuted in this exhibition are a fresh reflection on Prager’s place of origin, site of inspiration, and frequent character—the city of Los Angeles. The world premiere of Play the Wind on Thursday, September 5, will include an opening reception for the artist at 536 West 22nd Street.

Prager’s contemporary take on the modernist tradition of anthropomorphizing a city, from Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Paris, to James Joyce’s Dublin, to Keith Haring’s New York City, arises from the artist’s recent professional and personal transformation. Having passed a major career milestone—the publishing of her first monograph, Silver Lake Drive (2018, Chronicle Books), and a mid-career retrospective of the same title—Prager spent time reflecting on her beginnings as a photographer and her transition to film directing. In addition, the birth of her first child in the city where she too was born and has lived most of her life contributed to an uncanny nostalgia for the artist that psychologically pulled her into the past while simultaneously beckoning her toward the future. Creating a film that could contain these seemingly contradictory impulses became the impetus for this new body of work.