Week-end is the final chapter in a trilogy created by Alex Prager, now showing at M+B Gallery in Los Angeles, simultaneously showing at the Yancy Richardson Gallery in NYC

photographer Alex Prager with her photograph Wendy, 2009 behind her.

As in the other photographs in the trilogy, The Big Valley and Polyester, Ms. Prager has created a series of characters with a story to tell.
These may not be told in the single frame, nor are they a portrait of the person’s life, but a snippet of an incident.
You get to add the details, and she has left the canvas painted just enough so you have the elements to create that singular reality.
When you think about what kind of an image to put onto your walls,consider the time you’ll be looking at it.
Not just a decorative piece, these photographs give you a part of a story, you get to add the rest. And even as we looked at the images on the wall, the stories shifted.
How did these people get into these circumstances? What was going to happen next? And the story kept changing. Both the front end and the back
When we ask Alex about the stories she told us they were part with her and part with you.

As a self taught photographer, she has relied on her inner directing talents to bring us these cinematic snippets of stories in the lives of the female inhabitants of her worlds.

Cathy 2009 © Alex Prager

And from her series The Big Valley

Kimberly, 2008 © Alex Prager

These are large prints, mostly 4×5 ft, so you’ll need some space.
Maybe lose the flat screen and let these photographs inhabit your thoughts.

There seems to be a movement in the fine art photography world, that features the illustrative and storytelling skills of the artists.
Cindy Sherman (this link is a fan site) has been at the modern forefront, creating characters and scenarios that are cinematic in nature, and contain back stories.
And forward stories.

With photographers like Julie Blackmon, Holly Andres, and Alex Prager, there is evidence of a movement afoot.
And if there weren’t selling, the galleries wouldn’t be showing them.
Is there a significance to those artists being woman? You tell us.

Each artist has a unique viewpoint, yet has created a cast of characters to inhabit their stories.

All we now is that we love looking at the work and their is a depth to the stories that could live on our walls for a long, long, time.

By the way, one of the other things we dig about the M+B Gallery are the books they offer on a very friendly table when you move through the gallery. So even if you are not making the major print purchase , you have an opportunity to revisit the images in your own sweet time.

ALEX PRAGER
WEEK-END
30 JAN – 6 MAR 2010
M+B
612 North Almont Drive
Los Angeles, California 90069
T 310 550 0050

WEEK-END
14 JAN – 20 FEB, 2010
Yancey Richardson Gallery
535 West 22nd Street 3rd floor
New York NY 10011
T 646-230-9610

It’s been a good time in the photo gallery world with a great range of work being exhibit lately.
Tomorrow we’ll report back in on an exhibit we saw tonight that was 180 degrees from this work.