Art: God Only Knows
By Christopher Bonanos
At first, Alex Prager's images seem sunny as an early Beach Boys song-what could be wrong with those California blondes hanging out by the pool, or silhouetted against a bright blue sky? But check out the way they're looking at on another, the weirdly forceful body language, the waxiness behind the tans. Something's deeply wrong in those lives, and all the saturated Kodachrome-y color and retro buoyancy in the world can't disguise it. These new photographs add and extra, more personal dimension to the otherworldliness: They were all shot in the L.A. neighborhood where Prager grew up, and the models' clothes came from an actress friend of her grandmother's. If you're a David Lynch fan, this is the photographer for you.