Martin Parr - Assorted Cocktail

Martin Parr’s retrospective exhibition comprised 156 works under the titles “Last Resort”, “Bored Couples”, “Small World”, “Think of England”, “Think of Germany”, “Phone Project”, “Knokke le Zoute”, “Glasgow”, “Mexico”, “Luxembourg” and “Common Sense”.

Regarded as the “chronicler of our age”, renowned British photographer Martin Parr’s photographs constitute a turning point for Magnum Photos, a photographers’ co-operative that derive from the deep rooted tradition of documentary photography. Martin Parr presents what is rather familiar in a new and striking way. Contrasting the style of traditional Magnum photographers, Parr’s images are not alien or distant or mysterious or sad. To the contrary, the scenes presented in this striking collection are rather familiar, of everyday life and commonplace at the first glance. Differentiating from the other Magnum photographers with this characteristic, Martin Parr is however on the other hand a typical Magnum photographer when the intensity and gravity of the awareness he creates regarding the global capitalist culture is taken into account.

Martin Parr’s photographs, which seem exaggerated or even grotesque at first glance, in fact show us in a penetrating way how we live, how we present ourselves to others, and what we value. His images, quite familiar in their aesthetics and content, represent the metropolitan people with a remarkable sense of humour. Evoking interest through the themes he selects and his inimitable treatment of them, Martin Parr accepts individual characteristics and treasure eccentricities in his works.