The Best Exhibition of the Year

A runny egg yolk, pizza with a thick strand of cheese stretching from it as you pull it out of the box, or a perfectly cooked juicy piece of meat. We drool over food photos on Instagram, in cookbooks or online every day, but do you ever stop to think about the history of food photography? The exhibition Feast for the Eyes takes you through its entire history.

From 21 December, you can dive deep into the history of food photography at Foam in Amsterdam. From still lifes and nineteenth-century displays of food to cookbooks from the 1960s. Feast for the Eyes showcases the most important figures and movements in food photography.

Three themes

The exhibition explores, through three themes, how food is represented and what its meaning can be. Still Life takes one of the most popular genres in painting as its starting point. The photographs show how artists have been inspired by still lifes and how this genre has changed over time. Around the Table examines the ritual surrounding food and, by extension, cultural identity. Finally, Playing with Food shows what happens when you combine humor and play with food.

Cookbook nerd

Are you a true cookbook nerd? Alongside the photographs, a large number of cookbooks are on display, allowing you to learn even more about food photography through the years. My favorites are those old American cookbooks from the ’60s with lots of Jell-o and pineapple running through every dish; hopefully, we can browse through them there too.

Feast for the Eyes is on view at Foam from 21 December 2018 through 3 March 2019.
Foam is open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.; Thursdays and Fridays from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

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