Alex Prager's Mirage Factory in Miami Beach

VernissageTV

In this video, we visit Alex Prager's "Mirage Factory," which the artist created in Miami Beach during Miami Art Week 2025. Alex Prager’s Mirage Factory, presented by Capital One and The Cultivist during Miami Art Week 2025 (December 3–5), transformed Miami Beach’s historic 1940 Beach Theatre on Lincoln Road into a large-scale, walk-through cinematic illusion.   The installation unfolds as a "visual poem" across three meticulously constructed sets, evoking LA's evolution from arid promise to cinematic illusion. Prager drew on the city's foundational contradictions—no water, yet endless reinvention—using to-scale miniatures crafted by a family of model-makers (who've collaborated with Wes Anderson). Visitors feel like giants in a dreamscape, towering over vignettes that blur reality and fabrication, inspired by Golden Age Hollywood and Prager's own Los Feliz roots.  First Room: Artificial Orange Grove – A lush, pre-urbanization idyll representing early 20th-century LA, with hyperreal fruit trees under a painted sky, nodding to the boosters who planted oranges to lure settlers amid water scarcity.  Second Room: Hollywood Boulevard Backdrop – A vibrant dusk scene featuring Thomas Suriya's iconic "You Are the Star" mural, with glowing neon signs and the hum of ambition.  Third Room: Griffith Park Garden – An emerald-green oasis echoing The Wizard of Oz, complete with a faux pool from which ruby-heeled legs emerge, symbolizing seductive peril and transformation.  Alex Prager: Mirage Factory. Miami Beach, December 5, 2025.

Transcript

00:00It was one of those hot drives that

00:30set in hands to come down to the mountain passes and throw your hair.

00:34Come to Los Angeles, the sun shines bright, the benches are wide and inviting, and the

00:40orange groves stretch as far as the eye can see.

00:44There are jobs aplenty, land is cheap, and every working man can have his own house, and

00:50inside every house, a happy all-American family.

00:54You can have all this, and who knows, you could even be discovered.

00:59Become a movie star, or at least see one.

01:02Life is good in Los Angeles.

01:04It's paradise on Earth.

01:06That's what they tell you anyways.

01:09it's like a rough day.

01:10It's been a long time.

01:11It's a matter of time.

01:12It's a little bit of a nice line, but it's a beautiful little.

01:15It's a nice room for us.

01:17That's the neighborhood of Year.

01:19Better in Los Angeles.

01:20I love that.

01:21I would like to watch the country.

01:23But it's just a nice young man.

01:24It's just the smartness of the city and the white чтобы you were to get you.

01:28I'm a big kid with that.

01:30more than 30 years.

01:35The floor of the floor is in the ceiling and the activity is on the icon.

01:40The fact that the entire quality of life is in place, accentuated selflessness, and no one.

01:49The image shows us how close to the edge there.

01:57I can't take my picture.

02:27I can't take my picture.

02:56representation

03:06yeah

03:08same

03:10it's crazy

03:12we should just sit in a city

03:16it's like city area

03:26to bring to the road

03:28especially for those 50-pound drums

03:30it's on the road

03:32it'll be on your own device

03:34thank you

03:36thank you

03:38thank you

03:40thank you

03:42thank you

03:44thank you

03:46thank you

03:48thank you

03:50thank you

03:52thank you

03:54and

03:56the

04:02accentuate its components

04:04it's

04:06just

04:08the lens

04:10shows us

04:12how

04:18there

04:20here

04:22there

04:23Nice.

04:25Perfect.

04:27How's that?

04:31Awesome.

04:51You want to do it yourself?

04:53You want to do it while you're holding it?

04:55Yeah. Let's do it.

04:57Go backwards.

04:59Alrighty.

05:01You're going to look up here.

05:03Here we go.

05:07Awesome.

05:11How do you like it?

05:13It's great.

05:15I don't like my face but otherwise it's great.

05:17I don't like mine either.

05:19Don't worry. I hate my pictures.

05:21Thanks a lot. No problem.

05:23Thank you. You did great.

05:27I thought I really needed to go.

05:49That's what I realized he was doing.

05:52It's really hot.

05:54Gloria, would you like to run a crimson call?

05:59It's supposed to be like, come back for them, and the baby's hiding behind.

06:04What for you? What for you?

06:06You're welcome. Enjoy it.

06:11Hello, would you like to run a crimson call?

06:13Yes.

06:14Am I doing good in the process?

06:16Of course.

06:17Here you go. Enjoy it.

06:19Oh, this is a large one.

06:21Oh, my gosh.

06:23Enjoy it.

06:27I'm really excited.

06:29Do you like an orange?

06:31Good.

06:32Oh.

06:33How are you doing?

06:35Yeah, I was drinking a little bit.

06:37Those are your ones.

06:38Yeah.

06:42I'm just going to touch her.

06:45I'm seeing people touch her.

06:46Oh, yeah.

06:47It's going to be a challenge.

06:50Thank you, everyone.

06:52Okay, we're going to do so much.

06:57They have a super pretty porch.

07:00Oh, my mom.

07:03She's going to buy it.

07:05She's going to buy it.

07:07She's going to buy it.

07:08Yes, she's going to buy it.

07:10We'll play many more projects together.

07:19So we leave that way?

07:40It's a scarf in there, is a scarf in there?

08:10It's a scarf in there.

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