- Hardcover: 354 pages
- Publisher: Phaidon Press (Feb 1 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0714839906
- ISBN-13: 978-0714839905
- Product Dimensions: 29.8 x 25.7 x 3.7 cm
- Shipping Weight: 2.4 Kg
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,216,123 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
One of the leading British photographers of his, or any, generation, Martin Parr presents a retrospective of Parr's 30-year career, a dynamic entirely appropriate to his wry, equivocal look at nostalgia and tradition. Suburban warrior from Surrey, he was one of the first to drag British photography from the realms of advertising, fashion or hobby to the pretensions of serious "art". A collector by nature, even a trainspotter, and inspired by picture postcards, as his superbly monotonous Boring Postcards series bear witness, this mildly obsessive characteristic is at the centre of his art, which through his books, exhibitions, television documentaries and most notably, his work for magazines and newspapers, is immediately recognisable, and influential, as Richard Billingham's Ray's a Laugh demonstrated. His themes are for the most part unwavering, yet ultimately, it's other people's taste that lights up his photographs.
Attracting critics as well as fans, including fellow Magnum member Henri Cartier-Bresson, who remains "highly suspicious" of Parr's photography, he has never flinched from his content, saying of it, "certainly my photographs have a critical bite to them. I knew I was middle-class ...". It is also something Val Williams is conscious of in her lively essays that accompany the image selections from his career, and which follow him from the North of England to Ireland, back to the Northwest, and then down to Bristol. From his early days taking snaps at Butlin's to his strongest projects such as The Last Resort, The Cost of Living and Think of England, he renders his subject curiously denuded, despite frequent heavy adornment. Of similar kitchen-sink, kitschy curiosity as Pulp explore in their so-English music, Parr is less concerned with the "ordinary" than with the life less ordinary, such as holidays or social occasions, at which we exhibit our most excruciating foibles. Interestingly, when he moves outside his native land, as with Small World, his pictures remain technically superb, but lose the intuitive third dimension which his engrossed Englishness provides when observing his own. Parr may divide the critics at times, but this tasty body of work argues persuasively for his provocative and accomplished take on life, snapped from the inside looking in. --David Vincent
Review
"'...endless hours of pleasure. This is Britain captured in all its bright brash bawdiness, but celebrated with an artistic sensibility that transforms tackiness into art.' (The Guardian); '...one of the world's finest documentary photographers.' (Art Review)"
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Beware yellow colour cast!,
By
This review is from: Martin Parr (Paperback)
Many of the colour images in this book have a noticeable and unpleasant yellow colour cast. This quality of printing is unacceptable for a photography book. I gave it three stars because the black and white images all look fine, and the colour cast in not apparent in some of the colour images.
5.0 out of 5 stars
If there is only one Parr on your bookshelf...,
By A Customer
This review is from: Martin Parr (Paperback)
This is only my fourth time reading this collection cover to cover; I cant get enough of it. Williams' insightful essays broken up with the pertenant images following makes for a throughly enjoyable read, covering Parr from the early days to current. Williams pulls from lots of outside resources, making this a very well rounded look at his life time of work. If there is one Parr book to own, it is this beautiful Phaidon collection, cant reccommend highly enough!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Martin's visual extravaganza.,
By
This review is from: Martin Parr (Hardcover)
In the last chapter of this fascinating book author Val Williams says of Parr 'He is a cunning photographer, sidling his way into situations where he shouldn't always be, looking as ordinary as the people he photographs'. How true and this could well explain how he manages to take such interesting photos of people and situations.This thick, chunky book gives a good cross selection of Parr's work, from the superbly observed black and whites of working class life in the seventies and eighties to the capturing, in color, of the middle classes in the nineties. I think Parr works best when he photographs the British and is able to see and capture social situations that most of us miss. There are twelve color shots of street scenes in Boring, Oregon, (chosen, naturally, because of the town's name and Parr's three books, called Boring Postcards though these have no connection with the place) and they are just like any other photographers vernacular work, if Boring had been in England Parr would have found some class differences to make the photos say plenty. Author Williams writes in depth about Martin Parr and his work and with several hundred photos this book is an excellent visual biography of one of the best British documentary photographers working today. BTW, the back of the book includes a few pages of Martin's collection of ephemera, knick-knackery that has taken his fancy, a tin of Heinz Barbie pasta shapes, a set of Russian coasters showing trucks or a set of Spice Girls chip packets and more, I have a similar collection of things that have caught my eye over the years, is this a trait of creative folk?
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