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Louise Bristow: Hidden Persuader
Louise Bristow: Hidden Persuader
Permanent Gallery, Brighton
28 March – 26 April
To those literate in cultural or media studies, the title Louise Bristow has chosen for her exhibition at Brighton's Permanent Gallery will have an instant resonance: it is borrowed from Vance Packard's influential 1957 study Hidden Persuaders, one of the first works to 'reveal' for a popular readership the manipulative psychological techniques used by advertisers. I'm curious about the decision, wondering if Bristow is simply hoping to borrow some of the import of this publication along with its name, for, according to the gallery's statement, Bristow's work "explores the persuasive power of images and ideologies inherent within everyday visual communication and the built environment". I suppose that I've grown a little wary of the somewhat overblown assertions made by press-release-speak and learned to look through and beneath such claims to discern the actual, usually more modest, realities. Such realities can often be more interesting, and for me, this is the situation with the exhibition here. Packard's book was important in its time, but this is, of course, a moment that is now half a century past. These days, consumers are well aware of the advertisers' intentions and know...
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