For about forty years, the Englishman Martin Parr has been photographing tourists, churchgoers, folk dancers, tearooms, shopping malls… Recognised today as one of our greatest contemporary photographers, and exhibited internationally in the most reputable galleries, he has revolutionised the world of photography with his colour-saturated images and savage humour.
Martin Parr loves to surprise. He seizes subjects while they eat, point their fingers, clear a table under the rain, kiss or suntan. He is always on the lookout for the weakness betrayed by clothes, behaviour and obsessions, for the excesses of our society of consumption, the vulgarity and the waste. The settings are sharp and the lighting is harsh, without any concession to aesthetics. The artist whom we reproach sometimes for his irony observes his surroundings with unusual attention. His approach to the world through that which is the most banal has completely renewed the documentary approach to photography.
Martin Parr was the artistic director of the "Recontres Photgraphiques" in Arles France in 2004.
2007: - "Centre of the Creative Universe: Liverpool and the Avant-Garde" (collective exhibition), Tate Liverpool - "Indianscope" (collective exhibition), Maison de la Photographie Nord-Pas de Calais - "Les peintres de la vie moderne" (collective exhibition), Center Pompidou, Paris 2006: - "Rétrospective", FORMA, International Center of Photography, Milan - Preus Fotomuseum, Norway - "Tutta Roma", Museum of Capitole-Palazzo Caffarelli, Roma - "Think of England & Cocktail", Kamel Mennour Gallery Paris - "Mexico", Janet Borden Gallery, New York - "Fashion Magazine", Danziger Gallery, New York - Ellen Curlee Gallery, St Louis 2005: - "Parking Places", PhotoEspaña, Madrid - "Oeuvres 1971-2001", Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris - "The Phone Book," Albrecht Albrecht, Munich - "Think of England & Germany", Mannheim, Germany - Triennale photographique of Séoul, Korea 2004: "Europe, oh la la !" Maison de la Photographie Moscou - Curator invited at the festival des Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d'Arles - "Art of the garden" (collective exhibition) Tate London 2003: - "Oeuvres 1971-2001", Museum of Reina Sofia, Madrid, National Museum of Photography, Copenhaguen & National Museum of Photography, Bradford - "Small World", Mois de la Photographie Athènes - "Rétrospective", Kunsthal, Rotterdam
Recent publications: 2006: "Mexico", Ed. Chris Boot "Signes des temps", Martin Parr & Nicholas Barker, Ed. Textuel 2005: "Martin Parr Fashion magazine", Ed. Magnum Photos 2004: "Boring postcards", Ed. Phaidon 2000: "Think of England", Ed. Phaidon
