Martin Parr

Gerry Badger

The Photobook: A History -

Martin Parr Coloring Book!

The Story of the Soviet's Celebrated Moon Pups

Space Dogs

Stephanie H. Tung

Ruben Lundgren

Zheng Gu

Raymond David Lum

Newly revised histories of photography as recorded via the photobook have added enormously to our understanding of the mediums culture, particularly in places that are often marginalized, such as Latin America and Africa. However, until now, only a handful of Chinese books have made it onto historians' short lists. Yet China has a fascinating history of photobook publishing, and The Chinese Photobook reveals for the first time the richness and diversity of this heritage. Now available in a smaller size, this more accessibly priced hardcover edition is based on a collection compiled by Martin Parr and Beijing- and London-based Dutch photographer team WassinkLundgren. And while the collection was inspired initially by Parr's interest in propaganda books and in finding key works of socialist realist photography from the early days of the Communist Party and the Cultural Revolution era, the selection of books includes key volumes published as early as 1900, as well as contemporary volumes by emerging Chinese photographers.

from the 1900s to the present = Zhongguo she ying shu ji

The Chinese photobook

Sandra Phillips

Life's a Beach

This book provides a unique perspective on the story of photography through the particular history of the photobook. The second of two extensive volumes, it completes Martin Parr and Gerry Badger's study of the major trends and movements that have shaped the photobook genre since the birth of photography. It represents a valuable catalogue of rare and important photobooks. This volume continues where Volume 1 left off by bringing the story of the photobook fully up to date.

The Photobook: A History - Volume II

In Boring PostcardsMagnum photographer and postcard enthusiast Martin Parr brought together 160 of the dullest postcards of 1950s, 60s and 70s Britain to make a book that was, contrary to the conceit of its title, both fascinating and extremely funny. It was one of those ideas that seemed so obvious that no one could believe it hadn't been done before, and it caught the public imagination in a big way. In Britain Boring Postcardswas discussed everywhere from daytime TV shows to art and design magazines, from local newspapers and radio stations (outraged that their town should be labelled 'boring') to Timemagazine. Now Parr has turned his attention to the USA for a new book of Boring Postcards. Just as before, for a postcard to qualify as sufficiently 'boring', either its composition, its content, or the characters featured must be arguably boring or the photograph must be absent of anything that might conventionally be described as interesting. As the study of postcards becomes a field of academic interest, this book offers more than amusement: as a folk art recording of the non-places and non-events of post-war America, it reveals poignant insights into its social, cultural and architectural values.

Boring Postcards USA

Phillip Prodger

A major new book on Martin Parr explores the photographer's most enduring subject – people – as never before By turns witty, surprising, and ingenious, Martin Parr's photographs reveal the eccentricities of modern life with affection and insight. This book – published to coincide both with Parr's 2019 exhibition at London's National Portrait Gallery and also the date the UK will leave the EU – examines what it means to be human at a time of both change and retrospection. Bringing together new work from the last decade, Only Human explores the concepts of Britishness and national identity through the rituals and habits of everyday life.

Photographs by Martin Parr

Only Human

Robert Chesshyre

... A fresh term is required for this social phenomenon, and Martin Parr has coined the phrase "confortable classes." His photographs avoiding both the stereotype and the caricature - capture them as they spend their money and pursue their recreations. His people are at the heart of English society; they are articulate and forceful, and their aspirations will largely determine which way the nation goes. Parr's portfolio consitutes a penetrating portrait of Britain after ten years of Thatcherism. ...

The Cost of Living

Martin Parr's work is famous for its humour and his quirky vision of British life. The book reflects Parr's unique vision, humour and style as he looks at aspects of life and popular culture in Wales, from his famous love of beaches and beach holidays - in sun or rain - to coal mining and the Royal Welsh Agricultural Show.

Martin Parr in Wales

Soap packet book design, printed in fluorescent colors on packaging cardboard, by award winning designer Vince Frost.

Bliss

Parr has been collecting postcards for 20 years. Here he presents the cream of his collection--his boring postcards--presented as an exercise in sublime minimalism . . . and, above all, a richly comic photographic entertainment. 155 illustrations, 120 in color.

Boring Postcards

The culmination of a four year project documenting everyday life in the region known as the 'Black Country'.

Black Country Stories

Royal Jubilee

British photographer Parr uses his camera to skewer the affluent consumer culture now pervasive in his home country and throughout Europe. He is critical and pessimistic: in some of his ironically colorful pictures, fast-food consumers are literally ankle-deep in trash, and a kind of consumerist stupor seems to overtake most of the faces. Yet at the same time Parr is humorous, poking fun at a bare-breasted sunbather bottle-feeding her baby, at frenzied supermarket shoppers with crazily overloaded carts. The spirit of the late Tony Ray-Jones, Parr's compatriot whose delightful A Day Off (1974) showed the English at play, hovers over Home and Abroad. Sadly, Parr's English have gotten duller, gained weight, and lost touch with their delightful traditional eccentricities since Ray-Jones' day. Perhaps even Ray-Jones might today see the English as Parr has--homogenized and zombified by material goods. Or perhaps Parr simply has a darker vision. Gretchen Garner

Home and Abroad

Martin Parr is a key figure in the world of photography and contemporary art. Some accuse him of cruelty, but many more appreciate the wit and irony with which he tackles such subjects as bad taste, food, the tourist, shopping and the foibles of the British. Parr has been collecting postcards for 20 years, and here is the cream of his collection - his boring postcards. With no introduction or commentary of any kind, Parr's boring postcards are reproduced straight. They are exactly what they say they are, namely boring picture postcards showing boring photographs of boring places, presumably for boring people to buy to send to their boring friends. All of them are shot in Britain, taking us on a boring tour of its motorways, ring roads, traffic interchanges, bus stations, pedestrian precincts, factories, housing estates, airports, caravan sites, convalescent homes and shopping centres. Some attempt to idealize their subjects, only to fail dismally. Others lack any apparent purpose or interest, but the resultant collection of photographic images is wholly compelling. Boring Postcardsis multi-layered: a commentary on British architecture, social life and identity, a record of a folk photography which is today being appropriated by the most fashionable photographers (including Parr), an exercise in sublime minimalism and, above all, a richly comic photographic entertainment.

Rinko Kawauchi

Murmuration presents a new Photoworks commission by acclaimed Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi for the Brighton Photo Biennial 2010, New Documents, curated by Martin Parr. Invited to make new work about Brighton, Kawauchi was immediately drawn to the spectacle of flocking starlings at Brighton Pier. Here during the winter months at dusk, the birds gather in tens of thousands, wheeling around to create a mesmerizing cloud called a 'murmuration'. Kawauchi is fascinated by the ephemeral nature of this phenomenon and, continuing with the theme of the flock, she has also trailed groups of people through the city. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Strange and Familiar: Three Views of Brighton at the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, 2 October – 14 November 2010. Limited edition.

Murmuration

Rogelio Villarreal

This is Martin Parr's journey into and beyond the clichés of Mexico. It is his photographic exploration of the visual language of Mexico today and the battle of cultures being fought out at street level - between the country's catholic vernacular and the brands of global consumerism. Martin Parr is a polymath of contemporary photography. Artist, curator, collector and writer, he is recognised as a brilliant observer and satirist of consumer culture. Author of over thirty photography books, including Common Sense, Think of England, Our True Intent Is All For Your Delight and Boring Postcards, his photographs have been collected by museums worldwide, including the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Tate Modern, London. He lives in Bristol, England, and is a member of Magnum Photos. Rogelio Villarreal is a Mexican cultural critic and iconoclast. He is the author of El dilema de Bukowski (Bukowskâ's Dilemma, 2004) and editorial director of Replicante magazine. He lives in Guadalajara.

Mexico

Anonymous Project

In a unique visual dialogue, Deja View brings together the work of beloved photographer Martin Parr, master of capturing the art in everyday existence, with The Anonymous Project's archive of unidentified vintage slides, collected from across Europe and America. Surprising and delighting in their similarity, these affectionately matched images celebrate photography's power to capture the small moments of humour, warmth, ennui and absurdity that are in fact our most important of all.

Martin Parr

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