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Prologue to a Prayer centers on two choruses of men. 

In the exhibition’s titular series, nine figures are portrayed individually, always depicted straight on, heads lowered, eyes downcast. Presented in a uniform row stretching across the gallery’s longest wall, this type of open-ended sequence has become emblematic of Prinos’ practice. Together, these figures coalesce into a silent chorus—their simultaneous communion and isolation is palpable. Rendered in a state of interiority, they seem disconnected from their metropolitan surroundings. What remains concealed are each subject’s hands, occupied by a phone that singularly commands their attention. This omission allows for interpretive metaphor, inviting thoughts of prayer or voyeurism, and blurring the line between truth and fiction. In the words of the filmmaker Robert Bresson, “the supernatural is only the real rendered more precise.” 

Nine Young Men, the second chorus, was photographed in New York’s Bryant Park in 2015. In this single frame, spontaneous and unruly bodies move, touch, and freeze in moments that seem to shift from one second to the next. One boy’s hand reaches for another’s neck in a gesture that hovers between tenderness and violence, recalling the Pieta as well as Thomas reaching for the wound of Christ. In Christian iconography, physical touch transcends the symbolic and grounds faith in direct experience. This gesture becomes crucial, foregrounding the desire for physical sensation as proof—whether of faith or reality—and demonstrating the capacity for touch to be simultaneously violent and tender.

In the gallery’s central window, Confrontation (image by John Roca), depicts a tiger trapped inside an apartment, facing an abseiling policeman with rifle in hand, separated by window and bars. As is often the case in Prinos’ work, the image’s reality matters less than what it symbolizes—power, control, and witness. This found image reminds us that photographs describe more than just what is depicted; they also implicate the artist. This tiger, these men, are more than just physical bodies; they are political presences, continually enmeshed in the power dynamics that regulate public space and shape the act of representation. This moment marks Prinos’ most direct self-implication to date.

A crucial component of prayer is repetition. We see this both in the form of Prinos’ work as well as in his process. There is a ritualistic element to his repeated forays into public space, camera in hand. The patience, observation, and dedication that underpins this practice constitutes, in many ways, its own form of prayer.