'The American Diet' exhibit in Northern Lights comments on fast food culture
By Andrea Wang
April 28, 2011 2:22 p.m.
I thought a Happy Meal was always happy. Apparently the Reich brothers don’t think so.
Fourth-year film student Noah Reich, a former Daily Bruin video contributor, and his brother Adam created “The American Diet.” The photo series comments on American fast food culture and is currently displayed in Northern Lights.
Plump versions of familiar franchise icons like Ronald McDonald and the Starbucks siren are pictured in morbid scenes, either outlined in chalk at the scene of a fried food homicide or held at chicken nugget gunpoint.
The collection is the latest of student artwork Northern Lights hosts on its restaurant walls. Perhaps the hardest fact to swallow is that these darkly lit photographs hang around the dining tables at the popular North campus eatery.
But the artists are looking to stir up a reaction, and they’ve succeeded. They’ve left a guest book for passersby to leave comments in, and the responses are extreme. While some people called the display inspiring, leaving messages with multiple exclamation points, just as many found it contrived. One commenter, who signed the guest book as “tired of it,” said “Really? It’d be clever if this idea wasn’t already exhausted beyond belief.”
Friday is the last day to catch the exhibit. What do you think? Is it food for thought or a limp French fry of an idea?
