Martin Parr
‘Assorted Cocktail’
Gemeentemuseum, Helmond (NL)
24.4.2012 - 16.09.2012
A retrospective of the British photographer Martin Parr, that is one of the most influential and innovative photographers of our time. He holds a mirror to contemporary Western society: a world of consumerism, mass tourism and fast food. The exhibition takes place in the Boscotondohal.
Critical, seduction and humor, Martin Parr shows human behavior in a mass culture. Photos that show ourselves in an equally strange and unpredictable mix of dignity and imperfection.
At first glance, his pictures seem exaggerated. The motives for his pictures looks weird and difficult to figure out, the colors are black and the perspective is often unusual. Parr calls “propaganda” the overload of images that reach us through the media. He does this propaganda to attack with his own weapons: a critical view, seduction and humor. This results in a photography often original, entertaining, accessible and understandable. At the same time Parr’s work make us thinking on how we live, how we present ourselves to others and what we find important or valuable. Someway Parr builds an equally hilarious and impressive document of living in current times. In essence, as an anthropologist Martin Parr keep searching through the daily environment for true motives of who we are.
@ Martin Parr