Alex Prager takes us on a dystopian ride through her native Los Angeles
The artist’s latest film, Play the Wind, is an unnervingly surreal homage to her hometown featuring protagonists Dimitri Chamblas and Riley Keough
Alex Prager’s newest film, Play the Wind, showing now through 26 October at Lehmann Maupin’s 22nd Street gallery in New York, opens with a quote from Ray Bradbury about the dangers of nostalgia. ‘You will never understand time, will you? ... Why do you save those ticket stubs and theater programs? They’ll only hurt you later.’
And then the film really opens, or so we think, with Los Angeles, as seen through a car, driven by a man (played by Dimitri Chamblas, dean of the Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance), which is the way everyone knows to see the city but which is somehow – as becomes increasingly clear – different through Prager’s lens. The driver rolls through parking lots, past an accident, into a group of people running from an unseen horror. Women see him.
This film is about Los Angeles but also about the ideal of California itself: the golden state, the legend of Calafia, the place where dreams are made and shattered, where the everyday is special and vice versa. Three minutes in, we see the actress Riley Keough standing on a corner and then, immediately, locking eyes with the driver. She’s wearing a red dress; they make eye contact.
And then, an extraordinary sequence, on the verge of uncannily and physically too difficult to watch: Keough falls and falls and falls and falls through space and then, we think, time. She bursts through boxes and her clothes disappear. The feeling – and it’s a phenomenological feeling – is one of nightmarish vertigo. She falls, white sky turning to blue turning to clouds turning to the most verdant landscape, and she lands, in a green suit she’s picked up in the air along the way.
But this is just an account of what happens in the film, and what really happens is that the viewer is constantly invited to know better, to see more clearly, to pay closer attention and to think. Watching the film in the gallery is essential. The film audience watching Keough step in front of a screen reminds the gallery audience of what they’re doing, which is watching an artist.
The rest of the show comprises large-format photographs, stills from the film. It’s hard not to think of shades of Cindy Sherman in the visceral brightness of it all, or maverick director David Lynch. But it’s also hard not to think of Prager as someone forging brand-new territory amid well-trodden ground. Her film is a little sharper, a little brighter, a little more elusive, a little more terrifying (okay, a lot more terrifying). It’s more of the now – in its intimations of offscreen violence, in the happenstance of tragedy. The film is of today, purely, in that it articulates and capitalises on the fact that our world is ending, and our world is beautiful. It will only hurt you later.
An excerpt from Play the Wind, exclusive to Wallpaper.com. Courtesy of Alex Prager Studio and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul
INFORMATION
‘Play the Wind’, 5 September – 26 October, Lehmann Maupin. lehmannmaupin.com
ADDRESS
Lehmann Maupin
536 West 22nd Street
New York
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
-
Palazzo Roma embodies the heritage of Roman noblesse
Palazzo Roma, part of the Shedir Collection, boasts eclectic and eccentric interiors by Giampiero Panepinto
By Luke Abrahams Published
-
Boise Passive House’s bold gestures support an environmentally friendly design
Boise Passive House by Haas Architecture combines sleek, contemporary design and environmental efficiency
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Tour the Morgan Motor Company’s Worcestershire factory
The Morgan Motor Company might seem timeless – or even dated – but underneath the handcrafted aluminium bodywork is a manufacturer with great skills and grand plans: we take a factory tour
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
‘LA Gun Club’: artist Jane Hilton on who’s shooting who
‘LA Gun Club’, an exhibition by Jane Hilton at New York’s Palo Gallery, explores American gun culture through a study of targets and shooters
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Detroit Institute of Arts celebrates Black cinema
‘Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971’ at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) brings lost or forgotten films, filmmakers and performers to a contemporary audience
By Anne Soward Published
-
BLUM marks 30 years of Japanese contemporary art in America
BLUM will take ‘Thirty Years: Written with a Splash of Blood’ to its New York space in September 2024, continuing its celebration of Japanese contemporary art in America
By Timothy Anscombe-Bell Published
-
Todd Gray’s sculptural photography collages defy dimension, linearity and narrative
In Todd Gray’s New York exhibition, he revisits his 40-year archive, fragmented into elaborated frames that open doors for new readings
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
Frieze LA 2024 guide: the art, gossip and buzz
Our Frieze LA 2024 guide includes everything you need to know and see in and around the fair
By Renée Reizman Published
-
New York artist Christopher Astley showcases an alternative natural world
At Martos Gallery in New York, Christopher Astley’s paintings evoke an alternative natural world and the chaos of warfare (until 16 March 2024)
By Tianna Williams Published
-
The Whitney plots Harold Cohen’s artistic AI adventures
‘Harold Cohen: AARON’, at the Whitney Museum of American Art celebrates the artist’s software – the earliest AI program for artmaking – as an artwork in its own right
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Ludovic Nkoth’s vibrant paintings reflect on migration
Cameroon-born, New York-based Ludovic Nkoth uses acrylic paint to strike a balance between abstraction and figuration
By Ugonna-Ora Owoh Published