foam magazine # 31 ref.
December 1978. Sternfeld’s image is more complex. The building in the middle ground is a farm stand selling pumpkins. In the background, a house is on fire, and one can see firefighters trying to put the fire out – except for one, who is trying to decide which pumpkin to pick. This could not possibly be a real event – why would there be time to pick a pumpkin when there is a house on fire? But it is a real event – the house was set on fire by the fire department, to be used as an ex ercise. Sternfeld’s image thus bears traces of postmodernism, while being documentary in nature. The photograph is the result of a staging, but not for the camera, but a staging nevertheless. Prager’s burning house clearly references Sternfeld’s, but does so by doing away with anything you might consider orna mental. We are reminded of the most relevant fact of Sternfeld’s photograph: there is a house on fire.
Unlike large parts of postmodern photo graphy, these images avoid being overtly conceptual. Instead, they tap into what we prefer to think of as guilty pleasures. They are guilty pleasures in more ways than one: Not only does the artist produce images that offers a visual lush ness beyond that which might seem strictly necessary (things are often just a tad too colourful, borrowing as heavy from advertizing as from the ‘visually remastered’ looks of re-released Holly wood movies), the photographs also openly play with their visual references. As viewers, we are turned into children in a visual candy store. We know we shouldn’t, but we must indulge. •
In both these cases, Prager’s photo graphs, while clearly referencing earlier work, operate not against their predeces sors, but against what we remember. I, for one, certainly remembered Stern feld’s photograph not as McLean, Virginia December 1978, but as ‘the photo with the burning building’, and that is what I looked for on my com puter. In much the same way, I ended up looking for Metinides’ photographs. This is exactly why I was comparing the eyes with Bacon’s arrows: The arrows in the paintings point at some detail, but not at everything. In much the same way, we tend to remember photographs not for everything contained in the frame, but for the most poignant detail.
All images © Alex Prager, courtesy of Michael Hoppen Contemporary In order of appearance: 10:58am Bunker Hill and Eye #7, 2012 1:18pm Silverlake Drive and Eye #2, 2012 11:45pm Griffith Park and Eye #4, 2012 4:29pm Van Nuys and Eye #8, 2012 3:56am Milwood Ave and Eye #1, 2012 2pm Interstate 110 and Eye #6, 2012 4:01pm Sun Valley and Eye #3, 2012 3:14pm Pacific Ocean and Eye #9, 2012 3:32pm Coldwater Canyon and Eye #5, 2012
Prager’s photographs feel real because they are familiar, and because they refer ence something that we feel is real. At the same time, they also feel not real, they feel unreal. Now well over a decade into the twenty-first Century, we are very adept at reading images, at under standing that somebody might want something from us. Prager’s photo graphs play with this part of our reactions to them, too, by refusing to offer a clear message, a clear something that indicates in what way we might get manipulated. We recognize the artifice, but we don’t recognize the purpose that we think must be there. Things feel familiar, but they are not.
Alex Prager (b. 1979, United States) became interested in art in her adolescence and began to focus on photography in her early twenties. Her nomadic upbringing saw her dividing her time between Florida, California and Switzerland without ever settling down long enough in any one place for a formal education. She eschewed art school and began taking photographs on her own, teaching herself about equipment and lighting through trial and error. Prager has since contributed to a number of publications including The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, W, New York Magazine, Dazed and i-D. Her first museum show was the New Photography group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, while the most recent was State of the Art – New Contemporary Photography at NRW – Forum in Düsseldorf. She lives and works in Los Angeles. Jörg Colberg (b.1968, Germany) is the founder and editor of Conscientious, a widely read weblog dedicated to contemporary fine-art photography. He is a faculty member of the International Limited-Residency MFA Photography Programme at Hartford Art School (Northampton, MA). His writings have appeared in international photography magazines. Jörg Colberg has contributed introductory essays to monographs by various photographers.
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