Last week, Daniel Askill debuted his Los Angeles exhibition over at the Prism gallery, showing alongside David LaChapelle (covered). Entitled Three Rituals, the body or work centered around a variety of photographs and video installations that explore the thematic elements of vast empty spaces and how they relate and contrast with the lone individual. Featuring photos that carried a great sense of composition, the viewer was presented with what may have seen a simplistic approach. However, on closer inspection, this simplicity is what gives the work some weight and an interesting context to discuss. Included also were various video installations that featured slow moving images, duplicating the feeling of staring at one single picture. Two of these installations were framed within digital screens that took the aspect of the photograph into the realm of movement.
The main attraction of the night however were pieces that featured Michael Jackson facing an airplane shattering through glass, including a sculpture. The photographs had a iconic quality about them and it wasn’t simply due to Askill’s use of Jackson imagery. It had more to do with the contrast between man and machine. Perhaps, the use of two such images even show the artist’s method of tapping into two iconic images which have one way or another become part of the American cultural mindset during recent times.
More shots after the jump…
