Hasta La Ideas

Los Angeles as muse in the pulp-inspired work of a budding photographer

by Meghan Killeen

A young blonde woman holds up her hands against the frantic flapping of grey pigeons encircling her. Another female character, this one in a red skirt, floats listlessly in a dark pool of blue water, her discarded pair of yellow heels resting nearby. Invoking intrigue and suspense with her luridly-colored dramas, photographer ingénue Alex Prager depicts the fissures of deception through retro Americana scenarios that somehow look timeless. “I want the pictures to be a fusion of the past with the present. That’s how I see the world. We’re never entirely in one period at one time,” explains Prager.

Drawing on cinematic cues from directors Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch, Prager’s photos use exaggerated angles and theatrical lighting to create a melodramatic world of mystery with women frequently poised beneath low flying planes—Prager’s signature homage to the film North by Northwest. The suggestively bleak compositions are balanced by the bold hues of the vintage clothing and synthetic wigs that subjects wear. “People used color then in a way they’d be embarrassed to use now,” Prager reasons. In her work the artifice of color creates a ‘separation of reality,’ conjuring both a mood and an era characterized by unrest that lies just below seemingly perfect surfaces.

Born in Los Angeles, Prager’s personal experiences have given her insight into several walks of life. In her teens, the artist worked a variety of jobs—from selling knives in Switzerland to working at a carwash. It was only after attending living photography legend William Eggleston’s show at the Getty that Prager set out on a self-taught course in photography. “I was really moved by his work,” Prager reflects. “I didn’t really understand why because I was just looking at something so seemingly ordinary.”

Motivated by her newfound passion, the young photographer began to exhibit her work at local galleries and spaces ranging from hair salons to hotels. In 2005, in collaboration with artist Mercedes Helnwein, Prager released her first book entitled “The Book of Disquiet: An Immoral Drama”, visually exploring the seven deadly sins. Following the success of her book, Prager went on to hold her first solo exhibition ‘Polyester’ at Santa Monica, CA’s Robert Berman Gallery, a series featuring women in sun-drenched predicaments. She continued to depict the feminine fables of a world askew in her collection ‘The Big Valley’, which debuted in 2008 at the Michael Hoppen Gallery in London.

Citing her belief that ‘deep down all women are actresses,’ Prager casts many of her friends as models, including her sister and fellow artist, Vanessa Prager. Each character conveys an isolated narrative, but curious about what happens at the beginning and end of her stills led to her recent short film, “Despair”, based on the 1948 film “The Red Shoes.” Inspired by the image of a fair-skinned, fiery redhead, Prager serendipitously met actress Bryce Dallas Howard and immediately cast her in the film as the tragic ballerina. Although women play an important role in shaping the atmosphere of a scene, Prager also regards her hometown city as a fickle muse. “The girls are more like props to me. I still have to find the exact right one for the picture I’m going to take, and she has to inspire me—but when it comes down to it, there’ll always be another girl, but there will never be another city like Los Angeles.”

Whether it’s the City of Angels or the women, Prager’s work has recently been in the spotlight with her feature spread in the November 2010 issue of W Magazine, which includes the standout piece
“Crowd” based on photographer, Stan Douglas’ historically re-created image, ‘Hastings Park, 16 July 1955’. Prager’s work was also on display as a part of MoMA’s 2010 ‘New Photography’ exhibition showcasing photos that ‘mine the inexhaustible reservoir of images found in print media and cinema.’ Despite her explosive success, Prager remains true to the emotional impetus of her images, stating, “Often once we get on set, all [these] plans and ideas go out the window and it becomes just pure improvisation at that point. I can never go about it in a logical or analytical way—it’s more based on instincts and energy”.

The Audi Icons series, inspired by the all-new Audi A7, showcases 16 leading figures united by their dedication to innovation and design.

Our video of the largest known collection of magic books, nestled in a secret NYC location

by Greg Mitnick

Nestled in a hidden location in midtown Manhattan, the Counjuring Arts Research Center is ground zero for illusionists and historians alike. The Center provides a range of services, publishes scholarly journals, and teaches hospital-bound kids magic through its Hocus Pocus program. It is perhaps best known as home to one of the largest known collections of historic books, letters, and other media, which the center makes available online.

Bill Kalush, the center’s founder and director, explains how he built the collection piece-by-piece and shows us some of its highlights.

A Singaporean magazine takes their pages to the arcade and more

A publishing concept that bridges print, digital and display mediums like touchscreen or arcade console, Singapore’s free, quarterly Kult Magazine by creative agency Kult 3D is set to release its sixth art-centric issue with a theme focused on extinction. Concerned about how quickly animals are disappearing due to the hands of man, it presents a visual discussion on their value through interesting facts and thought-provoking graphics.

The staff at Kult 3D decide upon the different themes based on their topicality; for example, a previous issue on AIDS was sponsored by Singapore’s Health Promotion Board as part of its education campaign on the subject. Kult 3D then culls artists and graphic designers—mostly in Asia, to help provide them with a platform—who present their own takes on the subject, and the results become part of the magazine.

The agency then takes the artworks and turns them into interactive pieces that can be experienced on the Kult Artcade, an ’80s-style arcade console whose current location is at the Know It Nothing boutique on Singapore’s Haji Lane.

Also at that location until the end of June is a touch screen display hanging in the window where passers-by can swipe and drag elements of the artworks to activate fun and surprising animations of the Fortune issue. Made using UBIQ technology, the project was a special commission from the store as part of its ever-changing window display project.

“We identify technology that we want to explore then we adapt the content to best suit the medium. The interactive window display makes the magazine accessible to a wider audience. By having a theme for each issue, it helps the viewer to understand the work, thus improving the wider public’s visual literacy,” said Kult Creative Director Steve Lawler.

Those not stopping in Singapore anytime soon can still engage in the interactive version via the website. The issue comes out early June 2011, but readers outside of Singapore can subscribe and just pay the postage.

Famed Beatles photographer Tom Murray on the debut of the ultimate online gallery of pop culture images

Last week online photography gallery Rock Paper Photo launched, ambitiously making thousands of the most sought-after images in pop culture history available to the general public. Shot by top photographers, all images are carefully selected, available in limited editions and hand-signed by the lensmen themselves. Connoisseurs can snap up Richard E Aaron’s archival pigment print of Jerry Garcia peering over his glasses for thousands or, if you’re just an endearing fan, a few hundred will get you a Richard Beland print of the Beastie Boys.

To learn more about the new site and its featured photographers we were lucky enough to chat with Tom Murray, the award-winning photographer who shot the series of Beatles photographs now known as “The Mad Day: Summer of ’68,” which are widely considered some of the most important color photographs of the group ever taken. We caught up with Murray here in NYC just minutes after he signed the first editions to be sold on RPP and hours before hopping on a flight back to England.

How did you find yourself involved in Rock Paper Photo?

For a long while we have only been showing through art galleries, and the really great galleries are booked up for two or three years in advance, so when RPP told us what was happening and asked would we like to be involved I said sure. Now, any fan can shop online and they can see some great rock-and-roll photography by quite famous photographers, including my Beatles work.

Aside from the accessibility, what about Rock Paper Photo really piqued your interest?

First of all is, it is very well designed. They also explain what the different types of prints are—the platinum prints, the chromogenic color prints, which I produce, and also giclée (Archival Pigment) prints. And a lot of people don’t know the difference between them. I think they’ve been very clever with the pricing. If you’re a Beatles fan you can a giclée image at a good price. If you’re a photographic collector and also a Beatles fan then you’ll go for the chromogenic print. I love black and white and they’ve got some wonderful platinum prints there, which are great.

How do you feel about the quality of images sold on the site?

I think they showcase it all very well—such high standards. I’ve spent three days just going through different proofs, till we got it perfectly right. I am very fussy. When people now see the prints they will realize why I am so fussy. The whole website is very high quality, limited-editions, fabulous prints, fabulous giclées. I’ve had many offers before to release my work in different ways, and I’ve not liked it. Some of the digital quality that people are settling for now is not very good. But [RPP] really does bring my work alive and they seem to understand what i want as a photographer.

Was getting the Beatles photos available to the public your biggest driving factor in working with Rock Paper Photo?

Well, yes. To be quite honest I’ve had Beatles fans nagging that they frankly couldn’t afford the limited-edition chromogenics, and for a fan they’re quite expensive. I don’t produce tiny little prints, I grew up the old-fashion way with chemicals and papers. So when Rock Paper Photo said they were going to do a giclée edition. I said fine, that will be great for fans.

Tell us a bit about the progression of your lengthy career.

I’m very lucky, I’ve been a photographer since I was 15. I’ve just been snapping my way around the world and it is just very fortunate for me that I’ve frequently been in the right place at the right time and skilled enough to produce some work. I started in newspapers in the ’60s, I worked there for years, then I went to Africa and worked there for years. And I came back and became the staff photographer for the Sunday Times Magazine. Then opened my own studio and started getting American clients and moved to New York, then to Los Angeles. Then I went back to England about 10 years ago. and we started seriously thinking about putting these images out for people to purchase in around the year 2000.

Now back in England, what takes up most of your time nowadays?

I’m actually semi-retired so now I’m going through fifty years of my photography. And its amazing, I’m coming across work that I’ve forgot I’ve did, found pictures of Norman Mailer, Richard Burt. I found a whole set of pictures of Eli Wallach, and some more of John Huston the film director. And some of that starts to become historically valuable now, so that may end up also on this website.

So you intend on showcasing more long-lost images on the site as well?

Anything that they’re interested in, I’m going to showcase. So much of the stuff is in slide form, transparencies, negatives, and the rest of it I’m actually just scanning it so that my agent in NY can see it. Once it’s scanned, I got to go back into it and caption everything and put little story in so people know the reason I got to photograph it. It’s the old stories that are interesting to people.

Why is it important to have all of this available online?

A lot of photographic collectors will be buying the rock-and-roll prints, whereas rock and roll fans will be buying the giclée edition. Because they’re fans of the singers, they’re not necessarily collectors of photography. That’s the way it works. And a lot of galleries won’t sell both together. With the way things are going, more and more people buy stuff online. I know I do and I’m 68 years old. My mother is 92 and she occasionally buys things online, so it is the way of the future.

All images by Tom Murray

Artist James Turrell’s mind-bending experience of light, sound and space in Järna, Sweden

The average human takes many things for granted, but in the eyes of American artist James Turrell the light and color around us is top of the list.
For the past 30 years the pioneering artist has been creating breathtaking installations based around the simplistically multifaceted mediums of light, color and space. In fact, Turrell can lay claim to owning the world’s largest piece of art, the Roden Crater, which affords the viewer access to celestial phenomena at a location just outside of Flagstaff, Arizona.

While the crater is still very much a work in progress, a new exhibition entitled “See! Colour!” just opened in the unlikely location of Järna, a small commune just outside Stockholm which has played a huge part in the Swedish anthroposophical movement over the years.

The show features a host of Turrell’s site-specific installations—all of which are programmed according to their locations in the world and proximity to the atmosphere, light and climate. Each of the five works is undeniable proof not only of Turrell’s artistic acumen but of the potential of color and light to inform and baffle the mind.

“Ganzfeld“, treats the viewer to an enormous room which cycles between the red and blue portions of the color spectrum (according to Turrell’s technician these color groups are chosen for their ability to overload the retina quickly). It takes seconds for the dimensions of the space to vanish while the mind attempts to locate corners, walls and angles, an effect that’s both disconcerting and exhilarating at the same time.

From Ganzfeld, a short walk leads visitors to the gentle hues of Wedgewood, which acts like a tranquilizer to the overloaded brain, structuring the exhibition cleverly with its change of pace.

Many of the works at Järna are not only site but time specific. Skyspace, a work which perhaps epitomizes Turrell’s work, is best viewed a short time before the sun rises and sets. Inside a tall cylindrical room with a skylight-like hole cut into the center of the roof a series of lights are aligned in the direction of the natural light pouring in. The result is a disorientating change of color in the natural light, and a slice of the atmosphere which seems almost tangible. “Light is all around us, it’s what feeds out bodies, while we describe emotions, art and life through the language of light and color,” explains Turrell.

Discussing what many consider to be his most powerful piece, Bindu Shards, Turrell told us that, thanks to his time as a pilot, “My work has always been informed with an exploration of a landscape without horizons, like a whiteout, the rapture of the deep. I try to create a horizon-less, gravity-less space.”

Bindu Shards is a 4.2-meter sphere in which the viewer is inserted, lying on their back, wearing headphones and carrying a panic button. Choosing from hard or soft, they are taken on an indescribable 15 minute journey that is likely to linger in the mind for weeks following.

A small sign plays in the headphones as a veritable light show plays out, triggering what Turrell calls “Behind the Eye Seeing,” in which you feel as if your entire field of vision is extended through to 360 degrees. Color, light and the audible sign take the mind to a place where breaks of solid color create the sensation of flying and physical release. The fact that you are enclosed, alone in the sphere also allows you to actually feel the different temperatures from the wavelengths of each respective color.

While there is a large number of installations on site at Järna, this is seemingly only a small slice of the potential color holds, and with every passing technological advancement, Turrell’s pieces are destined to become even more moving and pioneering.

“See! Colour!” is a stirring odyssey of color and light which has to be seen to be truly believed. The exhibition is open through 4 October 2011. All images by Florian Holzherr, see more in the gallery.