Rows of McDonald’s fries stand against a field of saturated red. The cartons are instantly familiar, but their repetition transforms an everyday order into something closer to a crowd: abundant, organised and carefully staged.

At first, the photograph appears playful. Look again, and its mood becomes harder to place.

Taryn Simon, McDonald's French Fries, Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, 2024.

Created for Starting at America, a project commissioned by The New York Times during the 2024 US presidential election, the photograph examines one of the campaign's most widely circulated moments. Rather than photographing Donald Trump, Simon turned her attention to the fries associated with his appearance at a Pennsylvania McDonald's.

Removed from the restaurant and reconstructed under studio lighting, they became less a record of what happened than an examination of how political images are made. The work reflects Simon's perspective on a highly publicised campaign moment rather than offering a definitive account of the event itself, leaving viewers to draw their own conclusions.

By removing the candidate altogether, Simon allows the McDonald's brand to carry the image. Its familiarity becomes a visual shortcut, collapsing politics, advertising and popular culture into a single frame.

The longer the photograph is observed, the less stable it becomes. What first appears as a regimented arrangement of identical cartons gradually reveals small irregularities. Fries bend, tilt and spill beyond their containers, while the saturated red background shifts between McDonald's corporate identity and the visual language of political campaigns. Simon never privileges one interpretation over another, allowing branding and political theatre to occupy the same visual space.

Taryn Simon, McDonald’s French Fries, Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, 2024 (detail).

Throughout her practice, Simon examines how systems of power, knowledge and authority are produced through images. Her photographs often resemble documentary evidence, yet every detail has been deliberately selected and composed, encouraging viewers to question not only what they are looking at, but how it has come to be seen.

In McDonald's French Fries, an object designed to be consumed and forgotten becomes unexpectedly monumental. Detached from the campaign appearance that first brought it to public attention, the photograph becomes less about fast food than about the way contemporary politics is increasingly experienced: through symbols, photographs and carefully constructed moments engineered to be remembered long after the event itself.

On 28 September, Cultivist Club Members can experience Taryn Simon’s new Guggenheim exhibition during an exclusive before-hours tour. RSVP via the app or click here to find out more about membership.