'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
'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.
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.
Crowd #3 (Pelican Beach), 2013. 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.). Archival pigment print, flush-mounted. 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 ‡ on Phillips Photographs London Auction 2 November 2017.
