Exhibition Review: Alex Prager, Part II: Run
Written by Luxi He
Photo Edited by Alanna Reid
ALEX PRAGER
Claire and Frances, 2022
archival pigment print
48 x 62.3 inches (print)
Courtesy Alex Prager Studio and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London.
Alex Prager, Part II: Run is on display at Lehmann Maupin in New York from 19 January to 4 March. The exhibition features the debut film by the photographer known for highly dramatic scenes, and a conversation will be formed between the film, her photographs and a sculpture installation of the central symbol in the film. Part II: Run is a continuation of Part I: The Mountain. Both parts invite allegory into real-life scenarios and transform them into an uncanny, reflection-provoking “retro future that feels real”.
ALEX PRAGER
Run, 2022
Film still
Courtesy Alex Prager Studio and Lehmann Maupin
The exhibition surrounds a central narrative that first finds its fullest expression in the film. Four suited up men and women were rolling down a mirror sphere half the size of an adult down the street. Every pedestrian who happened to be in its way was drawn under the colossal ball and became flat. The flattened pedestrian, however, would later be puffed again and stand up miraculously.
ALEX PRAGER
Sleep, 2022
Archival pigment print
40 x 77.4 inches (print)
101.6 x 196.6 cm
42 x 79.5 x 2.5 inches (framed)
106.68 x 201.93 x 6.35 cm
Courtesy Alex Prager Studio and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London
The large-scale photograph “Sleep” accompanying the film shows a scene that looks like an extension of pedestrians being flattened by the mirror sphere. In the photograph a large ensemble cast lay on the street, sleeping. Here, Alex Prager’s returns to shooting ensemble cast after having turned into individual portrait in Part I, a sign of re-engaging with the public narrative that she has primarily approached from a private domain in Part I.
The central symbol of the silver sphere also becomes a sculpture installation, and a woman is shown being drawn to the bottom of the ball. What’s so playful about the mirror ball is that it allows for interaction. When viewers approach the ball, they will immediately find themselves also dangerously close to being flattened.
ALEX PRAGER
Cecily, 2022
Archival pigment print
21 x 36 inches (print)
53.3 x 91.4 cm
Courtesy Alex Prager Studio and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London
Alex Prager has never disappointed us with her use of humor and absurdity to discuss themes that are otherwise too heavy to lift. This exhibition is a hilarious reinterpretation of the Apocalypse, only that the apparel of the four horsemen refers not to any canon but to the classical Hollywood series The Matrix, and their movement feels as clumsy as a circus troupe. The funny mirror sphere also looks ridiculous in the grave context—unwieldly, silly, and the absurdity is even more accentuated considering it is a symbol of the ominous apocalypse.
ALEX PRAGER
The West, 2022
archival pigment print
48 x 63.7 inches (print)
Courtesy Alex Prager Studio and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London.
What an absurd expression did not and cannot muffle, nevertheless, is a tragic undertone always audible in Alex Prager’s work. Part I: The Mountain and Part II: Run both came from the artist’s experience and reflection on the tragic two years we’ve just been through. She chooses Apocalypse—the story of death, of resurrection—as the archetype for her creation, reminding us of the circle of life, death and rebirth that we have voluntarily or involuntarily been involved in.
In a rare moment of softness, Alex Prager has once told her interviewer that absurdity and art create a separate layer above real life, and it is on this layer that some discussion and reflection on the real life below it becomes realizable. It is not that art serves as a proxy, but that what we are unable to say, art has given it a voice
ALEX PRAGER
Mary Suspended Between Heaven and Earth, 2022
archival pigment print
59 x 42.5 inches (print)
Courtesy Alex Prager Studio and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London.
