Heaven or Las Vegas
“Heaven or Las Vegas” is a series of photographs, videos, and animated GIFs made in a variety of Las Vegas hotels from 2010 - 2012. The GIFs were featured in the online publication, The Destroyer in 2012.
“Jill Pangallo’s photographs make a fitting contribution to the grotesque qualities of being. From the slightly odd to the alarmingly perverse, her made-up portraits obscure the identities of her models, yet reveal everything closeted from the public eye otherwise. Dealing with the clash between mass culture and identity, she uses 99-cent items as building blocks for constructing suppressed desires, and spelling out hidden drives. Cheap fetish items made out of feathers, knick-knacks, and toys adorn leopard print pants and fishnets, a gift bag makes for a campy head dress, a handshake becomes a foot shake, and a wig turns into a face mask. Using the disposable and discarded, Pangallo constantly re-renders suburban fantasies of glamour and sexuality while using the distinct flavor of reality shows, gossip magazines, and web live feeds. Continuously consumed and constructed, these images offer a point of view that is intensely private as it is garishly populist in her funny and disturbing photographs ‘Toys’, ‘Seekers’, ‘Lucky Charms’, ‘Hotel’, and ‘Headshots’.”
