Nancy Brown slaughters fast food industry

The exhibit was compiled for Brown's Master of Fine Arts thesis.

By John Gehringer

Published April 13, 2010

Droves of art admirers filed into the Bingham Gallery on Friday and were greeted by a bizarre display: enormous, sculpted sides of beef, their innards coated with a tarry substance and littered with butterflies, hung over a dense heap of industrial cattle feed. As viewers moved further in, the strange and unsettling atmosphere only intensified, thanks to sculptures of eviscerated animal corpses and piles of fur beneath hanging bovine skulls.

Although it could well have been a back room in a slaughterhouse, piled high with horrors too great for the eyes of general public, the evening's display was actually "Industry," the thesis exhibit of graduate student Nancy Brown. Focusing on the poor treatment of commercially farmed animals and the tyranny of American fast food corporations, "Industry" is a stark indictment of the meat business.

The exhibit is a mixed media collection completed over a year and a half, with all works present handmade by Brown. The sheer volume of work displayed impressed reception attendee Fergus Moore.

"It's an incredible amount of work," Moore said. "It's in your face, over the top. This is a Master of Fine Arts thesis."

Brown said the exhibit speaks volumes to those who might be uninformed about the health problems and negative environmental impacts she said can be attributed to the fast food industry.

"We have children with Type 2 diabetes because we don't know how to feed them," Brown said. "The health issues are No. 1 for me."

The exhibit showcases Brown's work in an eclectic assortment of media with pieces — such as ceramic and clay sculptures of hanging rabbit corpses, found objects, including skulls and antique slaughterhouse tools, and an enormous scratchboard mural — depicting the evils of the fast food industry.

In a hallway adjoining the main exhibit, viewers can stumble upon some of the more grotesque points of "Industry." A wall is lined with actual hot dogs, shriveled and dripping with grease. Further down, cornucopias of raw bacon, mashed potatoes and sausages pour forth from the walls.

Attendees present at the exhibit's reception were treated to a vegetarian buffet complete with grilled tofu sandwiches, local craft beer and an hors d'oeuvres waitress dressed entirely in McDonald's sandwich wrappers.

Many of those in attendance shared Brown's strong views regarding the fast food industry and its corrupting effects on society.

"I'd say the cigarette I'm smoking is less likely to give me cancer than a McDonald's hamburger," Columbia College junior Lydia Stange said.

Much of "Industry" focuses on the greed of fast food corporations, which Brown said is carried out at the expense of the American public. With twisted incarnations of fast food icons, such as Ronald McDonald and the Burger King, Brown's work serves to assign images to otherwise faceless corporate behemoths.

Some of those present at the reception shared Brown's hope to enlighten the public to what she sees as the evils of the fast food industry.

Attendee Jamie Eaves was hopeful that the exhibit's message would shine through.

"I do believe that the art will open the eyes of people to the atrocities perpetrated upon the public by the fast food industry," Eaves said.