Last time Adam Ekberg showed at Platform, the photographs were haunted by a real case of arson. Ekberg's childhood home on a Massachusetts farm was hit by a serial arsonist. He was caught because he stuck around at every crime scene to watch his work burn. His face was the only one in all the crime-scene photographs.

Ekberg's work now, two years later, is apple-cheeked innocent but not unknowing. There's something just right about the tone—resigned to absurdity and, in this flattened state, ready to laugh or to be pleasantly surprised. This time, the artist says, one of his goals is simply to make people smile. Why else precisely rig up a pineapple so it eclipses the sun like a desperate commercial for a Hawaiian vacation? Why else make these?:

As a person just trying to get through a day, I appreciate these gestures. See more of Ekberg's work here.