What Martin Parr's Photos Say About Us

martin parr - last resort

martin parr - machu pichu

What we value. Leisure, consumption and communication.

martin parr - fashion mag

Parr enables us to see things that have seemed familiar to us in a completely new way

Critisized and applauded:

Art Critic David Lee,

"[Parr] has habitually discovered visitors at their worst, greedily eating and drinking junk food and discarding containers and wrappers with an abandon likely to send a liberal conscience into paroxysms of sanctimony. Our historic working class, normally dealt with generously by documentary photographers, becomes a sitting duck for a more sophisticated audience. They appear fat, simple, styleless, tediously conformist and unable to assert any individual identity. They wear cheap flashy clothes and in true conservative fashion are resigned to their meagre lot. Only babies and children survive ridicule and it is their inclusion in many pictures which gives Parr’s acerbic vision of 
hopelessness its poetic touch."

Parr Shrugs,

"It didn’t seem to me to be a controversial subject. It was a rundown seaside resort in Britain. What’s the surprise in that?"

described as cruel and 

Martin Parr - British Food

Martin Parr - British Food

 

martin parr - fashion mag

Martin Parr - Flowers

...voyeuristic, flash saturated and anthropological 

with books titled The Last Resort, The Cost of Living, Signs of the Times, British Food and Fashion Magazine - Yes Parr is having a laugh at us but he does it so dam well. His is a world where white bread, empty fish and chip wrappers, flowers, high fashion parties and politics collide in an intimate creamy milkshake of "on show" colour, wrinkles and cake. 

A fascinating balance of seminal documenting in a world that often makes no sense. 

There are many words to describe Parr's work from vulgar to cynical but all I see is humour, an exploitative type of honesty and a borderline obsessive fascination with people. What more could you ask for in a photographer? 

Do something good for your eyes and brain - visit www.martinparr.com/books/  1982 - 2013