Subtext & Discourse | Art World Podcast
Arts:Visual Arts
Dr. Susan Bright is an Australian/British curator currently based in London. She has a specialisation in lens-based arts and contemporary visual culture with an emphasis on cross-disciplinary and international programming. She was a curator at the National Portrait Gallery in London before deciding to work independently in the early 2000s. Her professional life has brought her to live in London, New York and Paris where she has worked with many institutions on a wide range of projects. These include: Tate, Barbican, The Royal Academy, The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Saint Louis Museum of Art, Phoenix Art Museum, and The New York Public Library.
In 2007 she co-curated the landmark exhibition How We Are at Tate Britain. This was the first major exhibition of British photography ever held at Tate. In the same year she curated Face of Fashion at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Other significant exhibitions include: Home Truths at The Photographers’ Gallery and The Foundling Museum, London (2014) and Playground at Serlachius Museum, Finland (2018). Her survey exhibition Feast for the Eyes toured to six major museums and galleries in Europe, Canada and the USA (2018-2021).
In 2019 she was Guest Curator at PHotoESPAÑA. Exhibitions were held at Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural de la Villa, Museo Lázaro Galdiano and the Museo del Romanticismo in Madrid. In 2021 she was co-curator of f/stop 9: Festival für Fotografie in Leipzig.
Bright is regularly invited to be a visiting speaker, critic and scholar at universities worldwide. She taught curatorial practice and visual culture to both art and art history students for fifteen years at institutions including Parsons and the School of Visual Arts in New York and Sotheby’s Institute and University of the Arts, London.
She has authored and co-authored seven books. These include: Photography Decoded (Tate/Ilex, 2019); Feast for the Eyes: The Story of Food in Photography (Aperture, 2017); Home Truths: Photography and Motherhood (Art/Books, 2013); Auto Focus: The Self-Portrait in Contemporary Photography (Thames & Hudson, 2010); How We Are: Photographing Britain (Tate, 2007); Face of Fashion (National Portrait Gallery, 2007) and Art Photography Now (Thames & Hudson, 2005).
Bright holds a PhD in Curating from Goldsmiths, University of London.
Interview with Susan Bright recorded by Michael Dooney on 3. November 2021 in London, UK.
Portrait photo supplied by interviewee
NOTES
Pierre-André Podbielski, gallerist Podbielski Contemporary | EP39 Subtext & Discourse
Anne Schwanz, co-founder of OFFICE IMPART | EP38 Subtext & Discourse
Felix Hoffmann, chief curator C/O Berlin | EP37 Subtext & Discourse
Nina Ross, artist, activist & parent | EP36 Subtext & Discourse
Maya Anner, chief curator PHOTO IS:RAEL | EP35 Subtext & Discourse
ZERO WASTE exhibition at Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig | EP34 Subtext & Discourse
Ángel Luis González, founding director of PhotoIreland | EP33 Subtext & Discourse
Harriet Roth, art historian | EP32 Subtext & Discourse
Dorothee Bienert, director of Galerie im Körnerpark & Galerie im Saalbau, Berlin Neukölln | EP31 Subtext & Discourse
Fiona Sweet, festival & artistic director of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale | EP30 Subtext & Discourse
Catherine Evans, multi-disciplinary artist utilising photography, sculpture & installation | EP29 Subtext & Discourse
April Gertler, social practice artist & founder of PICTURE BERLIN residency | EP28 Subtext & Discourse
Piotr Pietrus, artist & social activist photographer | EP27 Subtext & Discourse
Interview with Georgie Pope | EP26 Subtext & Discourse
Interview with David Charles Collins | EP25 Subtext & Discourse
Interview with Peggy Sue Amison | EP24 Subtext & Discourse
Interview with Joséphine Demerliac | EP23 Subtext & Discourse
Interview with Laura Hirvi | EP22 Subtext & Discourse
Interview with Alexander Gehring | EP21 Subtext & Discourse
Interview with Lena Fließbach | EP20 Subtext & Discourse
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