Crowd #2 (Emma)
A cinematic and meticulously staged photograph by Alex Prager, *Crowd #2 (Emma)* depicts a dense sea of figures frozen in a moment of collective tension, with one woman — Emma — emerging as the emotional focal point amidst the chaos. Prager's signature hyper-saturated palette and theatrical lighting lend the scene a dreamlike, film-still quality that blurs the line between reality and artifice. The work explores themes of isolation, anonymity, and psychological unease within the overwhelming experience of modern public life.
- Medium
- Archival pigment print.
- Location
- Phillips, Salt Lake City, UT
- Spotted At
- Auction House · PhillipsView on map
🔨 Auction Lot
Photographs Day Sale
April 2, 2015
Artists in conversation
Gregory Crewdson
American · b. 1962
Crewdson creates elaborately staged, cinematically lit photographs that evoke profound psychological unease and a dreamlike tension between the ordinary and the surreal, mirroring Prager's theatrical approach and her exploration of isolation within constructed scenes.
Philip-Lorca diCorcia
American · b. 1951
DiCorcia stages and photographs crowds and individuals in public spaces using dramatic artificial lighting to create film still qualities, producing the same sense of anonymous figures caught in moments of psychological and emotional tension found in this work.
Cindy Sherman
American · b. 1954
Sherman constructs meticulously staged photographic tableaux using hyper-saturated color and theatrical artifice to explore female identity, psychological unease, and the tension between reality and performance, all of which are central qualities in this Prager piece.
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