A marquee has appeared on Miami Beach's Lincoln Road this week spelling out "Alex Prager's Mirage Factory" in red letters. Step inside the restored 1940 Golden Age Theater and you walk through three constructed worlds — each one a piece of how Los Angeles became Los Angeles.
Prager, a Los Angeles–based artist, designed the installation as what she calls "a visual poem" about the movements that shaped the city. The centerpiece is a miniaturized Hollywood Boulevard complete with Grauman's Chinese Theatre, El Capitan, and Musso & Frank's. Vintage billboards line the street — including one from the 1930s asking voters to "VOTE FOR WATER OR DESERT." Muscle cars sit parked. At the end of the street, a glimmering silver water feature represents the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the engineering project that made the city's explosive growth possible.
The full sensory experience
But Prager doesn't just show you the famous landmarks. The installation opens in an orange grove filled with real trees and fake oranges that actually smell like citrus. A voice vaguely reminiscent of Danny DeVito plays over speakers, trying to convince you to move to Los Angeles. The third room is a lush garden party set in Griffith Park, complete with a kidney-shaped pool and martini bar. Hidden behind a curtain is Prager's own painting of elegant cocktail guests — their faces transformed by unsettling special effects makeup into something slightly sinister.
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Start Your News DetoxEach room has its own soundscape, layering in the way Hollywood has packaged and sold itself over decades. The whole experience is bookended by a dining component created by chef Dave Beran, who runs restaurants in Santa Monica.
The Golden Age Theater itself is part of the story. Built in 1940 in the Streamline Moderne style, it was a mandatory stop for movie stars wintering in South Florida during Hollywood's Golden Age. Now it's being used to tell the story of the city those stars came from — a kind of mirror held up to the dreams that built Los Angeles in the first place.
