Curator and writer Susan Bright gave a talk about her experience in the art world. Beginning her career as a curator at the National Portrait Gallery, London Bright then moved onto other institutions world wide and is now based in Paris.
When looking through ‘Good House Keeping’ cookery book of 1969, Bright found that the images sat beautifully on the page; a traditional style of cookery book layout. However when ‘White Heat 25’ by Maro Pierre White released, the layout of his book had a drastic change and this is where cookery books started to take on more of an art approach when presenting images and text.
When constructing her own book, ‘Feast for the Eyes,’ Bright did not want it to look like a cookery book. It’s contents is made up of different photographers from all eras who had photographed food. She would then compare how each photographer had captured food and explored the journey of food photography over the years. Much of the photography within the book is in different styles. Some food is photographed with a fine art approach, whilst others are captured with a contemporary style. This is followed through with the front cover. When viewing the cover which is a bright yellow with a fine art image on the front, you would not think about it being a cookery book.
When curating for different exhibitions, Bright thinks outside the box about how to enhance the images presented on the wall. When curating ‘Feast for the Eyes’ at the Photographer’s Gallery London, Bright divided the exhibition into three sections all painted with a bright colour in which the photographs sat on top. Blue, red and yellow. This was done to match the idea of the aesthetic of Instagram, a platform that is growing daily for photographers and other artists.
