Alex Prager (b.1979, USA)

Alex Prager is a self-taught American photographer and filmmaker who lives and works in Los Angeles. MoMA curator Roxana Marcoci has described Prager’s work as “intentionally loaded,” saying “it reminds me of silent movies – there is something pregnant, about to happen, a mix of desire and angst.”
 
Inspired by the photography of Weegee and Enrique Metinides, and films such as Metropolis and Un Chien Andalou, Compulsion confirms Prager’s vivid cinematic aesthetic. Unlike her previous work, however, the protagonists remain anonymous and distant. Prager’s new series investigates the complexity of observation within a society inundated by compulsive spectators, as well as the recurrent discourse in photography — that “meaning” is often derived from a multiplicity of gazes. In addition to provocative juxtapositions, Prager manipulates the scenes through her choice of cropping, continually interrogating the truth content within photography — a trope as old as the medium itself. Prager’s altered and manufactured scenes, in conjunction with the evocative eyes remove, the images from their original context and allow them to aquire new associations. (source: Michael Hoppen Gallery)

[more Alex Prager | artist recommended by loic-arnaud]