Martin Parr

Martin Parr was born in 1952 in Epsom, UK. He graduated from Manchester Polytechnic in 1973. He now serves as the president of Magnum Photos. He currently lives and works in London.

Martin Parr is a chronicler of our age. In the face of the constantly growing flood of images released by the media, his photographs offer us the opportunity to see the world from his unique perspective. Leisure, consumption, and communication are the concepts that this British photographer has been researching for several decades now on his worldwide travels. In the process, he examines national characteristics and international phenomena to find out how valid they are as symbols that will help future generations to understand their cultural peculiarities. Parr enables us to see things that have seemed familiar to us in a completely new way. In this way, he creates his own image of society, which allows us to combine an analysis of the visible signs of globalization with unusual visual experiences. In his photos, Parr juxtaposes specific images with universal ones without resolving the contradictions. Individual characteristics are accepted and eccentricities are treasured.

In 2002, the Barbican Art Gallery and the National Media Museum initiated a large retrospective of Parr’s work. He has served as a professor of photography at The University of Wales Newport campus and the Guest Artistic Director for Rencontres d’Arles. In 2006, he was awarded the Erich Salomon Prize. In 2008, Martin Parr was guest curator at the New York Photo Festival, curating the “New Typologies” exhibition. In 2008, “Parrworld” opened at Haus de Kunst, Munich. The show exhibited Parr’s own collection of objects, postcards, his personal photography collection of both British and international artists, photo books, and finally his own photographs. At PhotoEspana 2008, Parr won the Baume et Mercier award in recognition of his professional career and contributions to contemporary photography. Parr has published more than eighty books on his own photographic works, and edited more than thirty other books.

-Adapted from an introduction by Thomas Weski and Martin Parr’s CV

www.martinparr.com