Is This Spaghetti Monster an Artist's Commentary on Gluten Intolerance?

By Erin Mosbaugh

Mar 16, 2015

French artist Theo Mercier has created a lonely monster made entirely of spaghetti.

“This textural, monumental piece is around 10 feet tall, and that’s when it is sitting—which is all the time,” writes Beautiful Decay. The sculpture’s title, Le Solitaire, indicates the monster feels alone in a world where everyone is either gluten intolerant or on a low-carb diet.

Photo: Theo Mercier

When did pasta become a menace, and quinoa a saint? What happened to people’s unbridled joy for spaghetti? There’s no doubt that this spaghetti monster, like Mercier himself, wants to sit down with the world and break bread.

Beautiful Decay notes,

Mercier’s work is often large and textural, as Le Solitaire’s tactile spaghetti-skin begs to be touched. The noodles form an endless series of lines bending and forming across the body of the creature. They imitate scribbles of continuous lines doodled on a piece of paper. A self-taught artist, Mercier is an expert at inducing strong emotions with such a bizarre and surreal sculpture. We cannot help to feel sorry for this dripping, sorrowful beast. Its wide, striking eyes that stare directly at the viewer are also in other works for Mercier’s.

Another of Mercier’s works depicts salami floating at the bottom of the ocean. We can’t even begin to guess the metaphor here.

Photo: Theo Mercier

[via Beautiful Decay, h/t Twitter/@sippey]

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