M+B Gallery — Film Noir Blonde

Face in the Crowd reveals a beguiling portrait-maker

January 27, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

Crowd #9 (Sunset 5), 2013, by Alex Prager

Alex Prager: Face in the Crowd at M+B Gallery in West Hollywood is well worth a visit; the FNB team attended the opening on Saturday night and snapped a few candids (below). The exhibition reveals an artist with an eye for sublime color and masterful compositions as well as a beguiling portrait-maker who deftly mixes kitsch and mystery with humor and poignancy.

Prager, 34, is a self-taught photographer and filmmaker who started shooting after seeing William Eggleston’s color images. A Los Angeles native, her work frequently draws on vintage Hollywood, retro advertising and neo-noir imagery. The new show features large-scale color photographs of elaborately staged crowd scenes that explore the psychological complexities of human interaction, specifically the dynamics of an individual within a mass of people.

“I’m fascinated by the experience of being involved in other people’s lives accidentally,” Prager said, noting that her work has been influenced by time spent in busy cities such as New York and London. “Crowds have always been an interest of mine. It may look like a sea of people, but there are so many interesting stories, all colliding silently.”

Prager directed hundreds of costumed actors on specially constructed sets, creating congested public spaces including an airport terminal, a city hall lobby, a beach and the Sunset 5 movie theater. The stories of the various characters within these crowds culminate in a new film, featuring actress Elizabeth Banks.

Alex Prager: Face in the Crowd will run at M+B through March 8.

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Filed Under: Noir Style Tagged With: Alex Prager, Elizabeth Banks, film noir, Film Noir Blonde, M+B Gallery, neo noir

Noir City fest gets a passport, Anthony Mann films at UCLA, Alex Prager photography at M + B Gallery

January 24, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

The darkness, dahlings, just doesn’t stop. And who’s complaining? Not us! There is much for noiristas to relish, starting today:

NOIR CITY’s flagship festival in San Francisco returns to its home at the historic Castro Theatre Jan. 24-Feb. 2, 2014. The 12th edition of the popular film noir festival is going international and the lineup is downright sumptuous. Films include: “The Third Man,” a restoration of “Too Late for Tears” (with Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea), “Drunken Angel,” “It Always Rains on Sunday,” “Brighton Rock,” “The Wages of Fear,” “Rififi” and “Pépé le Moko,” just to name a few.

We can’t wait until the fest hits Los Angeles in April!

ANTHONY MANN is being celebrated by the UCLA Film & Television Archive at the Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood. The series Dark City, Open Country: The Films of Anthony Mann runs Jan. 31 to March 30.

Says UCLA: Director Anthony Mann’s reputation is now grounded in his 1940s crime melodramas, many of them film noirs, and his 1950s Westerns (eight with Jimmy Stewart at Universal). … The conflicted heroes of Mann’s Westerns are cut from the same cloth as his noirish crime dramas, often attempting to outrun a past that weighs heavily on their actions, morally ambivalent, as they vacillate between individual desire and communal responsibility. …

“Side Street,” starring Farley Granger, plays March 15 at UCLA.

Mann often dismissed his early career in Hollywood’s poverty row, cranking out low-budget crime features for Republic, PRC and Eagle-Lion, but a number of critics have begun to re-evaluate his early work. Indeed, this series was inspired in part by the publication of The Crime Films of Anthony Mann (2013) by Max Alvarez, who will also appear as a guest on Wednesday, March 12.

ALEX PRAGER, a Los Angeles-based photographer who draws from vintage Hollywood and neo-noir imagery, has a show opening Saturday, Jan. 25, at M+B Gallery, 612 North Almont Drive in LA. Face in the Crowd features new large-scale color photographs of elaborately staged crowd scenes and a film by the same name. This body of work was created for Prager’s first major museum exhibition in the United States at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which opened in November 2013. Alex Prager: Face in the Crowd will run at M+B Jan. 25 to March 8, 2014, with an opening reception on Saturday, Jan. 25, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Also of note: Director David Cronenberg wrote the intro to a new translation of Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis:” http://lat.ms/1c9cU60. And a report on Paris haute couture: Butterflies and Dita Von Teese at Gaultier: http://lat.ms/1aO0csu.

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Filed Under: Noir Style Tagged With: Alex Prager, Anthony Mann, Billy Wilder Theater, Castro Theatre, David Cronenberg, Dita Von Teese, film noir, Lizabeth Scott. Dan Duryea, M+B Gallery, Noir City, Too Late for Tears, UCLA Film & Television Archive

Synesthesia show: art through the lens of a set designer

June 25, 2012 by Film Noir Blonde

Still from the 1924 Marcel L’Herbier film “L’inhumaine.” Robert Mallet-Stevens designed the sets.

M+B Gallery in Los Angeles presents Synesthesia, a group exhibition, from June 29 to Aug. 31.

As a starting point, the show uses concepts from Robert Mallet-Stevens (1886-1945), one of France’s most influential architects and one of cinema’s first set designers. “In cinema, the set designer must be more of an architect than a painter,” he said.

Synesthesia is created from a set designer’s point of view – assembling furniture, art and objects in an environment that is highly personal but wholly artificial. Daniele Balice, co-founder of the Paris gallery BaliceHertling, and Jay Ezra Nayssan curated the show.

Participating artists include Michael Anastassiades, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Isabelle Cornaro, Jacopo da Valenza, Lucy Dodd, Thomas Dozol, Paul Dupré-Lafon for Hermès, Piero Fornasetti, Guido Gambone, Martino Gamper, Eileen Gray, Hadrien Jacquelet, Lisa Jo, Alex Katz, Allison Katz, Antonio Lopez, Stewart MacDougall, Alexander May, MissoniHome, Carlo Mollino, Paul P., Ico Parisi, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Charlotte Perriand, Gaetano Pesce, Pablo Picasso, Gio Ponti, ROLU and Yves Saint Laurent.