Looking at the photographs in Feast for the Eyes, it is noticeable that images of food are rarely just about food. The relationship between women and food is in many cases formed by normative gender roles: men work outside the home and women in the home take on the role of a housewife. Traditionally, the kitchen is her domain. This is reflected in cookbooks from after the Second World War. These books were not very realistic. They presented an image of abundance, progress and leisure while there were still food shortages everywhere. Further, they promised that they would alleviate the tasks of women in the kitchen, but at the same time, they propagated that the kitchen was their natural habitat. In addition to these images, the exhibition also includes a number of works that reject this portrayal, such as Semiotics of the Kitchen by Martha Rosler. In the 1970s, in a humorous manner she conducts a feminist struggle against classical views of women as kitchen princesses. During Teatime we will talk about the representation of food in relation to the image of women with Merel Bem (De Volkskrant), Susan Bright (curator Feast for the Eyes), Kim Knoppers (curator Foam) and Haley Morris-Cafiero (artist).
ABOUT FEAST FOR THE EYES
The exhibtion shows a rich history of food photography - not only in the visual arts, but also in photojournalism, commercial and scientific photography. Ranging from the banality of the diner-breakfast special of Stephen Shore the to the allegorical still life of Laura Letinsky, the extensive exhibition Feast for the Eyes explores the most important figures and movements in food photography.
Feast for the Eyes – The Story of Food in Photography is organised by the Aperture Foundation, New York and curated by Susan Bright and Denise Wolff.
The exhibition is made possible by the Blockbusterfonds.
Mediapartners: ELLE Eten, Het Parool
Foam is supported by the BankGiro Loterij, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, Gemeente Amsterdam, Olympus and the VandenEnde Foundation.
ABOUT MEREL BEM
Merel Bem (1977) studied art history at the University of Amsterdam and New York University. Since 2000, she has written about visual arts, photography and clothing for the Volkskrant and various publications and magazines, including Harper's Bazaar. She was a thesis supervisor at the photography department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and guest lectured in various other art academies. From 2018 to 2021, she will be jury chairman of the Steenbergen Stipendium, a prize for recently graduated photographers. She wrote the book Doorkijken (2016), on the role that visual art plays in her daily life, and edited Dit boek gaat niet over mode (2016), a book about clothing and why people wear what they wear, together with Cécile Narinx and Marije van Regenmortel.
ABOUT SUSAM BRIGHT
Susan Bright is a curator and writer based in Paris. She has curated exhibitions internationally at institutions including Tate Britain, The National Portrait Gallery in London and The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. The exhibition How We Are: Photographing Britain (2007) was the first major exhibition of British photography at Tate Britain. The exhibition of Home Truths (The Photographers’ Gallery and the Foundling Museum) was named one of the top exhibitions of 2013-14 by The Guardian and The Chicago Tribune. She is the guest curator for the International Festival of Photography and Visual Arts PHotoESPAÑA 2019. Her published books include Photography Decoded (Forthcoming Spring 2019: co-authored with Hedy van Erp), Feast for the Eyes: The Story of Food in Photography (2017), Home Truths: Photography and Motherhood (2013), Auto Focus: The Self Portrait in Contemporary Photography (2010), How We Are: Photographing Britain (2007: co-authored with Val Williams), Face of Fashion (2007), and Art Photography Now (2005). She holds a PhD in Curating from Goldsmiths, University of London.
ABOUT HALEY MORRIS-CAFIERO
Haley Morris-Cafiero explores the act of reflection in her photography as part performer, part artist, part provocateur and part spectator. Morris-Cafiero’s photographs have been widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad, and have been featured in numerous newspapers, magazines and online including Le Monde, New York Magazine and Salon. Born in Atlanta, she is a graduate of the University of North Florida, where she earned a BA in Photography and a BFA in Ceramics in 1999. Nominated for the Prix Pictet in 2014 and a 2016 Fulbright finalist, Morris-Cafiero holds a MFA from the University of Arizona in Art. The Magenta Foundation published her monograph, The Watchers, in 2015. Morris-Cafiero is a Lecturer in Photography at Belfast School of Art at Ulster University.