{"id":178695,"date":"2025-12-07T04:11:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T04:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/178695\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T04:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T04:11:15","slug":"inside-alex-pragers-showstopping-pop-up-in-miami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/178695\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Alex Prager’s Showstopping Pop-Up in Miami"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just when you think Miami Art Week<\/a> couldn\u2019t possibly fit another spectacle into its sun-soaked landscape, the artist and filmmaker\u00a0Alex Prager<\/a>\u00a0arrived this year with a showstopper. Her pop-up installation,\u00a0Mirage Factory\u2014created with\u00a0Capital One\u00a0and\u00a0The Cultivist\u2014burst onto Lincoln Road like a Technicolor dream, pulling visitors into the haze, humor, and hypnotic glamour of Los Angeles. It became one of the week\u2019s most talked-about experiences, and for good reason: Prager transformed her cinematic universe into a fully realized, interactive world that brought her latest work to life.<\/p>\n

Long admired for her meticulously staged photographs and films, Prager is no stranger to building elaborate tableaus. She seems to almost think in three dimensions, transporting viewers into scenes like crowds on Pelican Beach and glitzy parties of Beverly Hills. In her first feature-length film starring Elizabeth Banks\u2014captured in Galerie\u2019s intimate look<\/a> inside her Los Angeles studio\u2014Prager took a step further into world-building, masterfully translating her vision onto the screen.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Miniature<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlex Prager\u2019s Mirage Factory with Capital One and The Cultivist.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Daniel Seung Lee<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Comedian<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlex Prager\u2019s Mirage Factory with Capital One and The Cultivist.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Daniel Seung Lee<\/p>\n

But with Mirage Factory, guests didn\u2019t simply observe Prager\u2019s art; they inhabited it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to bring one of my entire worlds into a space,\u201d the artist said as we entered Mirage Factory. The journey began in a dreamlike orange grove\u2014a memory of Southern California that feels lovingly preserved and eerily impossible all at once. The air is thick with nostalgia, yet the scene carries the unmistakable theatricality that defines Prager\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Model<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlex Prager\u2019s Mirage Factory with Capital One and The Cultivist.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Daniel Seung Lee<\/p>\n

From there, Mirage Factory unfurled like a film playing in real time. Visitors wandered into a twilight vision of Los Angeles<\/a>\u2014its dusky magic hour beautifully recreated through\u00a0exquisite miniatures and a soundscape inspired by the city. The detailed models shimmered with affection and uncanny precision, capturing the good and the bad of LA: iconic buildings like Hollywood Pantages Theatre and reminders of the lived experiences of a city accustomed to fires, droughts, and earthquakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had just gone through the recent fires<\/a>. I wanted to make something about what the city means to us now, reflecting on where it\u2019s going and where it\u2019s been,\u201d Prager said. \u201cUnderneath all the madness and corruption, there\u2019s always that feeling of what if. That, to me, is Los Angeles. There\u2019s always a side door, and anyone can get in if they dream big enough.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Person<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlex Prager\u2019s Mirage Factory with Capital One and The Cultivist.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Daniel Seung Lee<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Chef<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlex Prager\u2019s Mirage Factory with Capital One and The Cultivist.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Daniel Seung Lee<\/p>\n

The final room of Mirage Factory held a chromatic and cinematic surprise. A chic dining room at night and a pool-side lounge area during the day, the room was drenched in green and culminated in a dramatic view of Griffith Observatory. Surreal touches, like a pool revealing only a pair of sultry legs with ruby-red slippers, reminded viewers that Prager\u2019s universe is equal parts elegance and absurdity.<\/p>\n

For Art Week, Mirage Factory\u00a0was open to the public during the day and activated through a series of exclusive Capital One events<\/a> at night, including dinners with Michelin-starred chef\u00a0Dave Beran and performances by Ellie Goulding and the legendary singer and actress Diana Ross. Most spectacularly, special guests witnessed Prager\u2019s latest photograph, Beverly Palms Hotel (2025), come to life in a performance with actors playing characters from the work, as if entering the world of her photograph.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Woman<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlex Prager\u2019s Mirage Factory with Capital One and The Cultivist.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Daniel Seung Lee<\/p>\n

This world-building ability is one of the reasons Capital One and the international arts club the Cultivist invited Prager to be part of their annual Miami Art Week collaboration. \u201cThere\u2019s something uncanny about Alex\u2019s work that makes you want to go deeper, as if there are details and connections waiting to be discovered,\u201d said Marlies Verhoeven, co-founder and CEO of the Cultivist. \u201cAlex is so passionate and thinks through every detail to make sure it feels authentic\u2014she spent 30 minutes placing a Spiderman figure\u2014but that\u2019s best part about working with artists: their passion.\u201d Mirage Factory marks the third collaboration between the club and Capital One, following Los Angeles artist Alex Israel in 2023 and Moroccan photographer Hassan Hajjaj<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Melancholic<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlex Prager, Hidden Hills (Echoes), (2025)
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Courtesy Alex Prager Studio and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London<\/p>\n

Working with the Cultivist and Capital One, Prager attests that the process wasn\u2019t that dissimilar to working with a museum or gallery. \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure what to expect, and branding is of course part of the conversation, but the whole process amazing,\u201d she said. \u201cThere was never any pushback, the only thing different was getting approvals for things, which is normal for a corporation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the context of Prager\u2019s career,\u00a0Mirage Factory\u00a0feels both inevitable and electrifying. Amid Art Week\u2019s energetic chaos, Prager offered a rare kind of transportive magic\u2014a chance to step inside the machinery of the dream factory itself and emerge blinking, dazzled, and craving more. And with an upcoming show at Lehmann Maupin<\/a> in New York and a soon-to-be-announced museum exhibition, visitors\u00a0might not have to wait too long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just when you think Miami Art Week couldn\u2019t possibly fit another spectacle into its sun-soaked landscape, the artist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[97386,307,304,305,306,97387,308,93,61,60,83831,97388],"class_list":{"0":"post-178695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-alex-prager","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-artsdesign","13":"tag-captial-one","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-miami-art-week","19":"tag-the-cultivist"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}