{"id":269937,"date":"2026-02-06T02:14:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T02:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/269937\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T02:14:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T02:14:14","slug":"french-celebrate-martin-parr-like-a-photographic-rock-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/269937\/","title":{"rendered":"French celebrate Martin Parr like a photographic rock star"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Britain, the photographer Martin Parr was initially deemed cruel for his satirical work because it seemed to make fun of ungainly working-class people to entertain the London art audience.<\/p>\n

In France, however, Parr was seen \u201clike a rock or a movie star\u201d, according to a new exhibition paying tribute to the late photographer, who died in December aged 73.<\/p>\n

Global Warning at the Jeu de Paume in the Tuileries Gardens, the premier Paris showplace of the photographic and digital image, was organised by its director, Quentin Bajac, and Parr over 18 months. Parr\u2019s unexpected death, from blood cancer<\/a>, has turned it into a homage to an artist who is revered in France as much as Henri-Cartier Bresson and the other post-war pioneers of street photography.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Parr captured Britons at the shops and on holiday<\/p>\n

MARTIN PARR<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

MARTIN PARR\/MAGNUM PHOTOS<\/p>\n

\u201cOne could say \u2026 that he invented a genre, with those garish, satirical images of contemporary society,\u201d Les Echos newspaper said in one of many glowing reviews for the exhibition that runs until May 24. L\u2019Obs magazine called the Surrey-born Parr \u201cthe most popular photographer of the 21st century\u201d. His corrosive regard shaped the way people take pictures, it said: \u201cWe all have a little bit of Martin Parr in our mind\u2019s eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Visitors<\/p>\n

An alternative view of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre<\/p>\n

MARTIN PARR\/MAGNUM PHOTOS<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Cozumel, Mexico, 2002<\/p>\n

MARTIN PARR\/MAGNUM PHOTOS<\/p>\n

\"Many<\/p>\n

Miyazaki, Japan, 1996<\/p>\n

MARTIN PARR\/MAGNUM PHOTOS<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Switzerland, 1994<\/p>\n

MARTIN PARR\/MAGNUM PHOTOS<\/p>\n

Bajac has given a political twist to the show, casting Parr\u2019s satirical eye for the banal, from seaside sunbathers to Tesco shoppers, into a warning about overconsumption and the other \u201chuman behaviours driving contemporary climate change\u201d.<\/p>\n

Posters at 17 Paris M\u00e9tro stations advertise the retrospective with walls of garish, hyper-coloured images of tourists in selfie-stick trances, discarded junk food and other portraits of tacky consumer life.<\/p>\n

\u201cParr\u2019s corrosive irony places him within a long tradition of British satire: his sharp wit and deadpan humour deliver a critical, and at times merciless, view of the world we inhabit,\u201d says Bajac\u2019s introduction.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Venice, 2005<\/p>\n

MARTIN PARR\/MAGNUM PHOTOS<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

Sorrento, 2014<\/p>\n

MARTIN PARR\/MAGNUM PHOTOS<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

Chowpatty beach, Mumbai, 2018<\/p>\n

MARTIN PARR\/MAGNUM PHOTOS<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

New York, 1999<\/p>\n

MARTIN PARR\/MAGNUM PHOTOS<\/p>\n

Parr was initially reluctant to accept the intellectual gloss for his work. \u201cHe was very keen not to come across as a whistleblower, or an activist photographer but \u2026 he was pleased that we might adopt a more concerned, slightly more anxious reading of these images,\u201d Bajac added.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was concerned about how his work would be interpreted after his death,\u201d Bajac said at the opening. \u201cHe wanted people to appreciate not only the humour, but also the documentary dimension of his work. He was someone who documented the civilization of leisure, despite giving it a light and humorous dimension.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photographer<\/p>\n

Parr himself in Paris, 2023<\/p>\n

FRANCOIS DURAND\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

The 180 images on display span Parr\u2019s interests in leisure, consumption, tourism, animals and technology.<\/p>\n

They include his famous early work, assembled in his 1986 book The Last Resort, featuring reddened sunbathers and shabby looking holidaymakers in the rundown atmosphere of New Brighton beach on the Wirral.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Britain, the photographer Martin Parr was initially deemed cruel for his satirical work because it seemed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-269937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}