From Paul Reyes’s essay for VQR:
Adam Ekberg has described his body of work as an “alchemy of sorts.” The subjects of his large-scale photographs include, among other things, a catapulted lawn chair, shaving cream zipping through a ring of fire, and milk performing all kinds of acrobatics. Everyday stuff conscripted for hyperactive still lifes, household items clowning around and pulling off stunts. A storybook could be spun out of any of these situations.
Take “Bic Lighter,” “Banana” and “Cocktail Umbrellas,” for example, a Mallakhamb-like arrangement of toothpick on lit lighter on fruit on toothpick that raises more questions the longer you look at it. Assuming this thing wasn’t glued together (it wasn’t), how in the world does that banana stay poised on the point of that toothpick? How does the lighter stay lit if no one’s pressing it? Could be the other umbrella, how it’s wedged into the spark wheel just so. But then how long before the umbrella catches on fire?