The Modern Icon and the Photography of Martin Parr
In modern culture, an iconic image is one that is readily recognised as having a well-known significance and content. An icon is something that embodies certain ideals and qualities; ones that we may aspire to have. An iconography therefore, is an illustration of a particular subject in great detail. It is something that we have decided to record and illustrate in great depth as its significance is something we have decreed too important to be forgotten. This iconography is a message to our and to future generations.
The iconographies of the past are familiar to us all. Take as an example Dorothy Lange’s intimate and powerful portraits recording historical and weighty issues such as migrant workers and land plantation in 1940s America. This is an important historical document and she makes a powerful statement about the human condition. The photographs are diffused with an emotional charge and we as the viewer recognise the images having a worthy and important content; they are iconic. Halla Beloff claims that the iconic power of a work derives from “multiple appearances over the years in different forms[1].” Dorothy Lange’s portraits have become a timeless metaphor for human suffering. These images are important and they say something unforgettable about the world in which we live.
British photographer Martin Parr takes photographs of the very ordinary. He is frequently described as being a ‘social documentary’ photographer. His subject matter is concerned with modern manners and social mores with his focus on burgeoning materialism in society. He has provided an archive for our time. Although focusing on the mundane I believe it can also be argued that his work is perhaps that which defines a modern iconography:
“A visual parameter for central categories of the human experience.[2]”
His ideas about society emanate from society itself – the ordinary becomes the extraordinary. Clichés and nostalgia become part of the contemporary art scene blinding us with irreverence and asking us to look again. How does an artist whose work focuses on the inane and the overly familiar manage to create the sublime? In his work Parr has managed to create the sublime from the ridiculous and in doing so has written an iconography for our time. I am interested in discussing the notion of the trivial and it’s now undeniable importance in the contemporary art world.
Roland Barthes in his essay ‘The Rhetoric of the Image’ states that if our reading of an image is satisfactory then our analysis offers us three messages:
“A linguistic message; a coded iconic message and a non-coded iconic message.[3]”
While the first linguistic message is independently read, the viewer receives the other two simultaneously – both the perceptual and the cultural readings come together. In terms of rendering a particular image iconic, Barthes says that in our modern age the more technology disseminates information, the more it gives us “the means of making the constructed meaning under the appearance of a given meaning.[4]” Martin Parr gives us the tools to render his images iconic because he takes pictures of things that are considered to be clichéd. Let us consider a still-life painting by Pieter Claesz from 1596. When an artist paints an oil painting of a bowl of fruit he lends to the image a certain gravitas. We, the viewer, are prompted to read the picture critically and with a greater awareness because of the techniques and level of skill employed. The difference between the still-life painter and the photographer is this; a painter does not say ‘this is a piece of fruit. I declare it to be important. I will record it for the annals.’ The act of painting the fruit and goblet is a demonstration of his technical ability and his craft. He may use them as a metaphor for death or as a warning about moralistic values but essentially the result is the same. The image content itself is unimportant. Martin Parr however, must work backwards from his image. As an artist he is saying; ‘this Brighton beach is important. I am creating a secure foothold in a surge of visual images. This ordinary scene is important because I say it is and I am important as a result of this.’ By taking images such as these he is rendering the familiar iconic and he flatters us in doing this. No longer do we need to endure great hardship or suffering in order to be considered important enough to document. As Nicholas Barker intuitively states:
“Apparently trivial matters...when peered at carefully, reveal crucial expressions of private and social identity.[5]”
He accurately points out that the photography of Martin Parr says much about the everyday exercise of domesticity and as a result of this, cultural power in contemporary society.
Sophie Calle has been described as a “first person artist.[6]” Like Parr, she turns the viewer into an accomplice, putting them on the same side of the lens, flattering them with association. While Calle is dissimilar to Parr in that her work’s primary focus is her own life situations, there are certain communal traits between the two. Throughout Calle’s enormous body of work she has managed to devise a different type of narrative to that which we normally associate with photography. She has been touted as an author of “photo-fiction.[7]” I believe that this statement is only half true. While Calle indeed puts herself in the role of author, the work is based on reality and can be likened more to non-fiction. Calle’s various texts, many accompanying exhibitions, are not easily categorised however. She proclaims that it is her, “author-narrator-character[8]” that is the primary focus for the art and this not only puts her in the realm of a non-fiction author but in an autobiographical one also.
Parr has said:
“I think that my photography is a form of collecting ... it’s a question of looking at things and organising them into groups, trying to make statements about them.[9]”
Calle too brings together a ferocious and exhaustive collection of details through various means; dates, postcards, letters, tickets. These articles form the pieces of the puzzle of her life and, once collated, allow the viewer to transform them into a continuous narrative. Both Parr and Calle are people mired in the remnant of nostalgia and the work instigates this. Calle chooses to exchange stories with friends and strangers asking them to recount ‘when have you suffered most?[10]” The answers are put together in a volume by Calle with an accompanying photograph heading each. The photographs, taken by Calle represent her account of the person’s story. Calle herself uses a photograph taken of a red telephone on the bed of her New Delhi hotel room, upon which she had received devastating news about her lover. While the image remains succinct throughout each of her ninety-nine recountings, the text accompanying her personal story of devastation shifts and literally fades with each recitation. The words fade as the pain fades. She cites the experience as something akin to an exorcism, literally wearing through the episode with “sheer repetition[11]” until purged of pain and regret.
Let us examine another important tool utilised by Parr as a means to rendering the photographs iconic. Despite the seriousness of Dorothy Lange’s chosen subject, even Lange felt the need to inject a little humour into her work with her ambiguously titled ‘By the Chinaberry Tree, near Tipton, Georgia, 1938.’ The snapshot depicts a ‘working-man’ struggling with a large farmyard pig and was deemed by Lange worthy of recording the accompanying man’s ‘articulate fuming.[12]’
“The pig – she took up and ‘cided she warn’t goin’ no fudder ... ah don’t like this pushin’ and pullin.[13]’”
Parr often makes pictures that are intentionally funny. He invites us to comment on society as he has, with a wry and satirical observation. It is very important not to underestimate the significance of humour in the work. It categorises it in a different way. While the term ‘light-hearted’ is one often associated with Parr’s work I feel this is perhaps an expression that should come with a tone of caution. As Robert Adams critiques:
“Our art has surveyed all the incriminating juxtapositions, all the plastic flamingos on the front lawn.[14]”
Parr demonstrates his ability to recognise the importance of ‘plastic flamingos’ in his photobooks ‘Sign of the Times’ (1992) and ‘Think of England’ (2002). It is of note here to comment even on the title of the latter – ‘lie back and think of England’ an expression supposedly used in the United Kingdom in the Victorian era as advice to a young woman about to enter into a sexual relationship with her new husband. This bawdy comment is used to great effect here but we also think of Baudelaire’s prophetic statement that when it came to art he could “laugh but no longer smile.[15]”
Parr plays upon our traditions and stereotypes to draw us to our conclusion about the content of these images. As Barthes says, our different kinds of knowledge are invested in the image and that this brings into play a typology. Every sign that Parr gives us corresponds to a “body of attitudes” with this forming a person’s idiolect or understanding of the work. He uses a very familiar lexicon of images to engage the viewer; things we find to be funny or ironic. In “Sign of the Times: a portrait of the nation’s tastes” there is a photograph of a false Edwardian-style pair of gold lamé curtains. The ostentatious garish quality of the curtain is highlighted by the accompanying text. The picture itself is untitled but the text is a direct quote from the owner of the curtains who claims that:
“I get such pleasure from them every day when I sit in the bath.[16]”
Parr lets us draw our own conclusion from the statement. This household furnishing, unimaginably tacky to most gives their owner ‘such pleasure’ – a phrase implying that the amount of pleasure is so much it is indescribable. It is hanging in the bathroom, this in itself lending an undertone of toilet humour to the gag. The complexities of issues such as personal taste, class structure in Britain, social mobility, cultural assimilation and branded goods are all being addressed here. Upon first glance however, the viewer’s automatic reaction is to the humour of the work. Nicholas Barker’s accompanying text in the book invites us to question why so little attention has been paid to the “innumerable ordinary decisions taken by people during the course of their everyday lives.[17]” Parr asks us the very same question with a devastating frankness and humour.
In 2003 the Tate Modern hosted an exhibition by Martin Parr entitled “Cruel and Tender.” A series of merchandise was made for the event with a number of fridge magnets depicting Parr’s imagery being sold throughout. Parr recounts the event as:
“a great achievement to get published by the Tate, but as fridge magnets. I think it’s funny.[18]”
To Parr, this was perhaps the ultimate consideration of his work – he dubbed it “the high chapel and it’s low art.[19]” He has of course collected the magnets and has them attached to his fridge. As an artist he has allowed the work to become something else entirely – he and the viewer are once again on the same side of the picture frame, standing outside, laughing uproariously. He has also accumulated a collection of photography applied to domestic ware – crockery decorated with imagery of Margaret Thatcher and watches bearing the face of Saddam Hussein. Through collecting such a vast array of objects and imagery Parr allows himself to “harness apparent contradictions without comment.[20]” Not unlike his own photography, these pieces once collated give an altogether different meaning. Photographs of empty parking spaces, viewed in this manner become “metaphysical gaps, which we may fill with thought.[21]” Sophie Calle’s collection of actions; routines and deliberations performed by others, works in much the same way. She studies an email objectively, inviting different people to react to the closing line; “take care of yourself.” She invites a number of chosen people to:
“Analyse it, comment on it, dance it, sing it. Dissect it. Exhaust it. Understand it for me. Answer it for me.[22]”
She considers their subsequent reactions as one would consider advice from a friend regarding the break-down of a relationship, ended via email. She, like Parr, has an interest in formalising the ephemeral – the grounding of the fleeting. It is by collecting things that are in transience; moods, reactions, letters and images of the very ordinary that Parr and Calle create a construct not only of our reality but of the reality of humanity. Calle’s decision to de- and reconstruct the email came from a realisation that the writing was “not flat but fraught with metaphor.[23]” Parr’s special attention to the banal regurgitates various forms of cliché. Metaphor and cliché exist because we exist and it is our existence that Parr and Calle confront themselves and subsequently we the viewer with. The “Exquisite Pain” of Sophie Calle is all the more exquisite due to our appreciation of the quality of pain and the sardonic humour of Parr’s “Phone Book” encapsulates not only our technological modern age but the essence of modern humanity.
Richard Billingham’s first group exhibition entitled “Who’s Looking at the Family?” (1994) also contained pieces by Martin Parr. Like both Calle and Parr, Billingham’s work raises questions about the nature of photo-documentation as art. Billingham’s 1997 publication “Ray’s a Laugh” drew an automatic comparison to Parr’s “The Last Resort.” Billingham’s photo-book contains snapshot pictures of his family taken over a six year period in the early 1990s. The first comparison here is an obvious one – the snapshot style of photography, the illustration of the unstaged and the nature of realism in the work. Billingham has stated that:
“I’ve always wanted to move people as much as I can, so much that they cry. Sometimes, women look at the book and they cry and I think ‘I’ve done it.’[24]”
Calle also offers herself and her situation up to the viewer, allowing us to dissect the most painful and tragic experiences of her life. This blood-letting binds all three artists together in voyeurism. Both Billingham and Parr encourage the spectator to consider “ones relation to class (structure) and poverty.[25]” Each artist’s photograph encapsulates the need for political change with Thatcher’s Britain playing a role in each photograph – an unwitting character throughout. The issue of class struggle is raised again and again by spectators upon viewing these representations of life in 1980s and 1990s Britain. Parr and Billingham challenge the classical canon of portraiture and still-life painting. As with Parr, Billingham’s presentation of his family portraits demonstrates his ability to recognise the importance of the crude and the extreme in art. It has been asked about Billingham what is the purpose of publishing so brutal and private a memoir? I feel it is because so much of modern art focuses on political and class struggle but with the artist as cool observer – an arbitrary but engaged witness allowing our gaze to fall on the unjust in our society. Billingham’s charm lies in that he is:
“a part of rather than apart from, which distinguishes him from the tradition of documentary photography that is based on the difference between the observer and the subject.[26]”
The theme of the domestic and the undercurrent of violence evoke in people a strong reaction of humour or revulsion. The laughter or tears provoked by Billingham’s work is a response that Jan Estep believes is necessary in order for the viewer to shake off “some excess of feeling.[27]” As with Parr and Calle, the photographs invoke our discomfort. It would seem that the more comfortable you are with your place in society the more comfortable you will be with Billingham’s brutal depiction. Whilst some abhor this tradition of autobiographical photography many find it necessary in order to critique the “otherwise unregarded proletarian subject matter.[28]” Billingham’s work has also drawn theories about the notion of metaphor with Outi-Remes stating that the images offer, at a metaphorical level, the suggestion of “the impossibility of closeness.[29]” Whilst obvious comparisons are drawn between Parr and Billingham’s supposed exploitation of their chosen subject matter, it is worth noting that the “Ray’s a Laugh” series were originally taken as a series of reference photos for Billingham’s figurative paintings. Calle too has come under fire for using the fiercely personal subject of her mother’s death in order to create her art. Yet when we examine the chosen topic once more – the creation of the sublime through the ordinary – what is more ordinary, and extraordinary, than death?
In 1986, Parr’s photography made a marked shift from black-and-white to colour. It was after this switch that Parr claimed the previous black-and-white images had been “romanticising and nostalgic” in its refusal to look at the ugly side of working class life. The notion of a black-and-white image as having a nostalgic and emotional content is of course an accurate one. Seen this way, images often take on a different role. As with the oil painting of a still-life scene we lend to this type of image a certain gravitas. Black-and-white imagery connotes a different era and contains a different essence. They herald a modern classicism, drawing attention to older and different aspects of social existence – war photography or 1950s Hollywood actors for example. In “The Last Resort, New Brighton” Parr’s photography takes on a new role. If we associate the classic and the iconic with simplistic, emotionally charged black-and-white images then Parr challenges our associations here. The work is abrupt, the images are visceral. Lurid pinks clash with acid greens. The sweets, jellies, wasps and shaved heads are explicit snapshots of a society mired in cliché and stereotype. Gerry Badger has said of Parr’s work “we wince as much as we smile.[30]”
Parr has found a new way to document humanity. In amongst the ‘kiss-me-quick’ hats and donkey rides of New Brighton, Parr found a new type of social commentary as well as a new way of engaging our thoughts about it:
“With photography, I like to create fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society’s natural prejudice and giving this a twist.[31]”
Parr’s subject matter was not the sunburnt feet, flip-flops and chip-shop queues of a ‘working class’ English summer as they might have been were they ‘classicised’ in black-and-white. Instead, he invokes in viewers questions about life under Margaret Thatcher’s rule in 1980’s Britain. He queries mass consumption in a burgeoning fast-food nation. It is these and not the black and white images from his portfolio that he says reflect his own feelings of angst about culture. He has been described as a “dry cultural observer of the underobserved culture[32]” and it is this that I believe to be so fundamentally important about the work of Martin Parr.
Let us again examine the notion of a modern iconography. We no longer look to religion as our primary resource for ideas on ‘how to live.’ Moralistic guidance comes in many different forms. Religion today is interpreted to suit beliefs and justifies actions rather than gives relevant guidance. Many have discarded religion wholly, looking to other sources for meaning and construct in society. The original iconographies have been done away with. The average teenager today recognises more images from popular culture than the original icons of Jesus Christ. We live in a society governed by celebrity. Brand-names mean big business and are marketed to us in such a way that we now have ‘celebritorial’ rather than religious aspirations. Advertising campaigns are loaded with false moralistic guidance about racism (Benetton, 1996) and ironies such as a “Campaign for Real Beauty” (Dove, 2006 - present) from a cosmetics company. This is not something that has escaped the notice of Martin Parr. He has famously collected and photographed celebrity memorabilia – wallpaper and crisp packets here take on a new meaning. These photographs again speak about the very ordinary in contemporary popular culture and in doing so get us to look at the bigger picture. Parr is getting us to question the notion of fame as a promotional tool/moral code. The very idea of fame is to sell an ideal or a particular unattainable lifestyle yet we allow ourselves to be guided by this falseness. There is a strange contradiction in what we are visually engaging in. The messages and physical remnants of advertisement promotion once collected and examined convey a very different message. It is, as one critic has said of the work:
“Widely political documentation, being a critique on political and social structures that fail people; that set up systems which are designed only to allow these people to fail.[33]”
It would not be possible to examine the notion of what makes a particular set of images iconic without discussing the use of symbols within these iconographies. It has been said that a symbolic image is only able to trigger responses in the viewer because it already represents to us some “value that is fundamental.[34]” These values include our circumstance in society and our particular definition of what it is to be human. As Barthes has said, our various reading of imagery depends on our different kinds of knowledge and which particular set of these we invest in an image in order to comprehend its meaning. This “plurality and co-existence of lexicons[35]” is in each individual with these forming the basis of our understanding. Parr uses a symbolic rhetoric in order to convey his ideas – floral dresses, suburban lawns, sea-side scenes, flags, buns, cups of tea form the basis of his work. When we see a close-up image of a shaved head or a set of motorbike leathers Parr is triggering something in us that recognises these symbols and puts forward our predetermined set of ideals about them. These photographs use symbols of humanity and therefore become symbols for humanity themselves. By portraying this set of symbols over and over again, Parr is saying something about their repeated inclusion in the images. He wants us to recognise the banalities and idiosyncrasies of the everyday and people as important. Chips in plastic wrappers, false red talon-like nails, blow-up dolls and wasps trapped in jelly all viewed under the title of “Common Sense” scream intelligibilities about a common culture so overloaded with imagery it is almost impossible to discern what symbolises what anymore.
The term ‘documentary’ was coined by Scottish film-maker John Grierson in 1926 in order to define what he said was “work based upon the creative interpretation of reality.[36]” This type of photography reflects a particular point of view with Parr’s brand of scrutiny used as a powerful tool. Parr’s documenting of objects often involves his zooming in on the subject with the colours taking on a raw intensity that would have otherwise perhaps been lost. Critic Martha Rosler questions the bravery but also the “manipulativeness” of documentary photographers. As a viewer we need to question this in Parr’s work – does the zoom lens add to or take away from our understanding? By documenting things like “Boring Postcards” and people’s housing interior how is Parr creating an iconography for our time? It has been said that Parr’s work is too steeped in humour and sarcasm for it to be truly iconic. It has also been argued that the work focuses on a uniquely Western or British society for it to be universal – the themes are too local in order for it to achieve the longevity needed for the truly iconic.
Having examined much of the Parr archive I feel that he is one of the most important photographers of our time. Although the work employs both humour and conveys the trivial, the depth of this illustration is what first of all makes the viewer sit up and take notice. There is something we can all identify with here – the visual parameter is not outside of anybody’s reach. The themes are ones now explored universally and Parr has managed to breathe some new life into a visual world rife with fruit and goblets. We live in an age where youth culture no longer recognises the iconic without an overtone of celebrity to glamorise it. Parr has glamorised the mundane here and we are all invited to observe and comment. In our lifetime we have twenty-four hour access to the brutality of humanity on news channels and reality television programmes. Parr gets our attention in a different way and makes us examine the very same issue. These ‘light-hearted’ images are broadcasting loudly about important issues – mass-consumerism, celebrity culture, fast-food, obesity, the breakdown of social class groups in society. We are continually caught up in the deluge of images of the suffering and the overlooked in society. Parr has cleverly sneaked his images into our consciousness in an already over-saturated market. While the documentary style nature of photography is something that is executed according to a convention, a new style of looking at imagery has been created here.
Martin Parr himself uses the term ‘propaganda’ to describe the “constantly growing flood of images released by the media[37].” His objective is to fight the deluge in a way that is universally accessible and understandable. He likens humanity to a cast of characters on a soap opera – he waits for the correct cast to come together and highlights the greedy and sometimes ridiculous nature of our race. We are all targets for the media. It is human nature to observe, criticise and laugh at the social mores of others. Martin Parr takes us on a voyage of self-discovery. He asks us are we really so different from the people he has photographed? His current work focuses on the rising iconic symbols of our time –the mobile phone, the über-rich in new pan-national societies, beach culture. The same themes run throughout the work however. His work is no less noble than Lange’s worthy documentary of human suffering. It is relevant and it represents a new set of signifiers recognisable to our generation en masse.
Artists like Martin Parr, Sophie Calle and Richard Billingham are a representative of what I feel is a new canon of art. Their work represents that which is iconic in our time. Although the subject matter is frequently unglamorous and the content surprising, the work is fresh and captivating. We live in an age where aspiration is limited now, not by social class but by our own definition of greatness. Much of humanity lives a life unlived – magazine and reality television celebrity offer a glamorous alternative to possessing talent and creativity. We are shown a false reality. Whilst Parr and Billingham utilise reality in their work it is not this televisual reality that we have allowed to become the very definition of the word. Parr, Billingham and Calle take situations in life and offer them up to us as an alternative to pop-culture. The break-down of a relationship is a horrendous time in any person’s life, as is the death of a mother or sibling. It is however, a true and uncompromising version of reality. These are things that are inevitable –they will happen to us all. Calle seems to be telling us to face our realities, however difficult, however uncomfortable, because at their very essence, they are real. Realness is a quality missing from our current cultural trend – ‘reality television’ is the ultimate oxymoron.
Parr has chosen to show us the things that surround us in order to get us to examine our own sense of achievement and worth. The notion that we matter, that our existence is worth something, is recognised in a different way. The extremes of Lange’s portraits contrasted with those of Richard Billingham’s offer us a new personal significance. The observational nature of these artists lead us to definite and perhaps previously unheralded conclusions about the truly iconic. We are forced to examine the essence of tradition. Calle implores friends to repeatedly react to a personal text. Parr shows us the seaside tradition of British culture. Billingham puts forward the notion that the very ordinary in society is truly extraordinary. They create a new form of narrative to engage with their viewer. François Brunet shows us that Parr has achieved the ultimate consideration when recounting the depth of his vision stating that the work:
“proves that it is still quite possible, in the post-modern era to become (or to produce oneself as) a ‘master of photography’ in a relatively traditional sense.[38]”
Parr heralds a welcome return to the real. His work combines the fiercely critical, the satirical, the observational and the traditional. The photographs and collections whilst constructed by Parr, escape photography’s potential to manipulate. He does not offer up his work for worship and yet, it has become a symbol for our generation. He has said:
“I looked around at what my colleagues were doing, and asked myself, 'What relationship has it with what's going on?' I found there was a great distortion of contemporary life. Photographers were interested only in certain things. A visually interesting place, people who were either very rich or very poor, and nostalgia[39].”
When asked what it was that made his photography different from that of others, Parr’s response was that he felt that he had:
“...managed to find a language through photography that I can call my own. It's like having a signature. This takes a long time to develop, but now you can look at my photographs and sort of tell that I took them[40].”
His work is uniquely poised to become a principal reference for our generation. His style and manner are no less significant today than they were twenty years ago. He represents the truly iconic employing a cutting voice and new language to ask the necessary questions about our nature with an accuracy and devastation impossible for humanity to ignore.
[1] Hella, Beloff, Image as Icon, Photography: a Critical Introduction, Ed. Liz Wells, 2002, p.44-45
[2] Koetzle, Hans Michael, Photo Icons, the Story Behind the Pictures, Volume I, Taschen, 2001, p.7
[3] Barthes, Roland, The Rhetoric of the Image, The Photography Reader, Edited by Wells, Liz, 2003, p. 120-124
[4] Barthes, Roland, The Rhetoric... p. 120
[5] Bunker, Nicholas, Parr, Martin, Signs of the Times: a Portrait of the Nation’s Tastes, Cornerhouse Publications, 1992, Introductory text
[6] Pacquement, Alfred, Sophie Calle, M’as-tu-vue, Preface, Prestel, 2003, p.15
[7] Pacquement, Alfred, Sophie Calle, M’as-tu-vue... p.20
[8] Pacquement, Alfred, Sophie Calle, M’as-tu-vue... p.21
[9] Coomer, Martin, “Watches of Mass Destruction,” Modern Painters, Vol. 20, p.41, October 2008
[10] Dillon, Brian, “Take Care of Yourself,” Art Review, Vol. 12, p.68, January 2007
[11] Calle, Sophie, Exquisite Pain, Thames and Hudson, p.After Unhappiness
[12] Adams, Robert, Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews, Aperture, 1996, p.23-24
[13] Adams, Robert, Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews, Aperture, 1996, p.23-24
[14] Adams, Robert, Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews, Aperture, 1996, p. 23
[15] Adams, Robert, Why People Photograph...p.23
[16] Barker, Nicholas, Parr, Martin, Signs of the Times: a Portrait of the Nation’s Tastes, Cornerhouse Publications, 1992
[17] Barker, Nicholas, Parr, Martin, Signs of the Times: a Portrait of the Nation’s Tastes...
[18] Coomer, Martin, “Watches of Mass Destruction,” Modern Painters, Vol. 20, p.41
[19] ,Coomer, Martin, “Watches of Mass Destruction,’...p.41
[20] Coomer, Martin, “Watches of Mass Destruction,” Modern Painters, Vol. 20, p.41
[21] Koestenbaum, Wayne, “Martin Parr’s Parking Spaces,” Aperture, no.189, Winter, 2007, p.76
[22] Dillon, Brian, “Take Care of Yourself,” Art Review, Vol. 12, p.68, January 2007
[23] Dillon, Brian, “Take Care of Yourself,” Art Review, Vol. 12, p.70
[24] Estep, Jan, “Ha ha ha: Ray’s a Laugh,” New Art Examiner 27 no1, Summer, 1999, p.28
[25] Remes, Outi, “Reinterpreting Unconventional Family Photographs, Returning to Richard Billingham’s ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ Series,” Afterimage 34, no.6, May/June, 2007, p.17
[26] Remes, Outi, “Reinterpreting Unconventional Family Photographs, Returning to Richard Billingham’s ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ Series,” ... p.18
[27] Estep, Jan, “Ha ha ha: Ray’s a Laugh,” New Art Examiner 27 no1, Summer, 1999, p.28
[28] Remes, Outi, “Reinterpreting Unconventional Family Photographs, Returning to Richard Billingham’s ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ Series,” ... p.17
[29] Op.Cit
[30] Parr, Martin, Think of England, Phaidon, 2000
[31] www.magnumphotos.com/archive
[32] Goldberg, Vicky, Light Matters: Writing on Photography, Aperture, 2005, p. 139
[33] Alistair Fitchett, The Story of the Blues (or the photography of Martin Parr),2002, www.tangents.co.uk
[33] Tisseron, Serge, What is a Symbolic Image? Bauret, Gabriel, Hill, John. T., Mora, Gilles, W. Eugene Smith; the Camera as Conscience, Thames and Hudson, London, 1998, p.69
[35] Barthes, Roland, The Rhetoric... p. 120
[36] Ellis, Jack, C., John Grierson. A Guide to References and Resources, Boston: G. K. Hall, 1986
[37] www.martinparr.com
[38] Brunet, François, , Martin Parr, Works 1971- 2001, Aperture,no.182, Spring, 2006, p.16
[39] www.photoquotes.com/martinparr
[40] www.bbc.co.uk/blast/art/people/martin_parr.shtml
The iconographies of the past are familiar to us all. Take as an example Dorothy Lange’s intimate and powerful portraits recording historical and weighty issues such as migrant workers and land plantation in 1940s America. This is an important historical document and she makes a powerful statement about the human condition. The photographs are diffused with an emotional charge and we as the viewer recognise the images having a worthy and important content; they are iconic. Halla Beloff claims that the iconic power of a work derives from “multiple appearances over the years in different forms[1].” Dorothy Lange’s portraits have become a timeless metaphor for human suffering. These images are important and they say something unforgettable about the world in which we live.
British photographer Martin Parr takes photographs of the very ordinary. He is frequently described as being a ‘social documentary’ photographer. His subject matter is concerned with modern manners and social mores with his focus on burgeoning materialism in society. He has provided an archive for our time. Although focusing on the mundane I believe it can also be argued that his work is perhaps that which defines a modern iconography:
“A visual parameter for central categories of the human experience.[2]”
His ideas about society emanate from society itself – the ordinary becomes the extraordinary. Clichés and nostalgia become part of the contemporary art scene blinding us with irreverence and asking us to look again. How does an artist whose work focuses on the inane and the overly familiar manage to create the sublime? In his work Parr has managed to create the sublime from the ridiculous and in doing so has written an iconography for our time. I am interested in discussing the notion of the trivial and it’s now undeniable importance in the contemporary art world.
Roland Barthes in his essay ‘The Rhetoric of the Image’ states that if our reading of an image is satisfactory then our analysis offers us three messages:
“A linguistic message; a coded iconic message and a non-coded iconic message.[3]”
While the first linguistic message is independently read, the viewer receives the other two simultaneously – both the perceptual and the cultural readings come together. In terms of rendering a particular image iconic, Barthes says that in our modern age the more technology disseminates information, the more it gives us “the means of making the constructed meaning under the appearance of a given meaning.[4]” Martin Parr gives us the tools to render his images iconic because he takes pictures of things that are considered to be clichéd. Let us consider a still-life painting by Pieter Claesz from 1596. When an artist paints an oil painting of a bowl of fruit he lends to the image a certain gravitas. We, the viewer, are prompted to read the picture critically and with a greater awareness because of the techniques and level of skill employed. The difference between the still-life painter and the photographer is this; a painter does not say ‘this is a piece of fruit. I declare it to be important. I will record it for the annals.’ The act of painting the fruit and goblet is a demonstration of his technical ability and his craft. He may use them as a metaphor for death or as a warning about moralistic values but essentially the result is the same. The image content itself is unimportant. Martin Parr however, must work backwards from his image. As an artist he is saying; ‘this Brighton beach is important. I am creating a secure foothold in a surge of visual images. This ordinary scene is important because I say it is and I am important as a result of this.’ By taking images such as these he is rendering the familiar iconic and he flatters us in doing this. No longer do we need to endure great hardship or suffering in order to be considered important enough to document. As Nicholas Barker intuitively states:
“Apparently trivial matters...when peered at carefully, reveal crucial expressions of private and social identity.[5]”
He accurately points out that the photography of Martin Parr says much about the everyday exercise of domesticity and as a result of this, cultural power in contemporary society.
Sophie Calle has been described as a “first person artist.[6]” Like Parr, she turns the viewer into an accomplice, putting them on the same side of the lens, flattering them with association. While Calle is dissimilar to Parr in that her work’s primary focus is her own life situations, there are certain communal traits between the two. Throughout Calle’s enormous body of work she has managed to devise a different type of narrative to that which we normally associate with photography. She has been touted as an author of “photo-fiction.[7]” I believe that this statement is only half true. While Calle indeed puts herself in the role of author, the work is based on reality and can be likened more to non-fiction. Calle’s various texts, many accompanying exhibitions, are not easily categorised however. She proclaims that it is her, “author-narrator-character[8]” that is the primary focus for the art and this not only puts her in the realm of a non-fiction author but in an autobiographical one also.
Parr has said:
“I think that my photography is a form of collecting ... it’s a question of looking at things and organising them into groups, trying to make statements about them.[9]”
Calle too brings together a ferocious and exhaustive collection of details through various means; dates, postcards, letters, tickets. These articles form the pieces of the puzzle of her life and, once collated, allow the viewer to transform them into a continuous narrative. Both Parr and Calle are people mired in the remnant of nostalgia and the work instigates this. Calle chooses to exchange stories with friends and strangers asking them to recount ‘when have you suffered most?[10]” The answers are put together in a volume by Calle with an accompanying photograph heading each. The photographs, taken by Calle represent her account of the person’s story. Calle herself uses a photograph taken of a red telephone on the bed of her New Delhi hotel room, upon which she had received devastating news about her lover. While the image remains succinct throughout each of her ninety-nine recountings, the text accompanying her personal story of devastation shifts and literally fades with each recitation. The words fade as the pain fades. She cites the experience as something akin to an exorcism, literally wearing through the episode with “sheer repetition[11]” until purged of pain and regret.
Let us examine another important tool utilised by Parr as a means to rendering the photographs iconic. Despite the seriousness of Dorothy Lange’s chosen subject, even Lange felt the need to inject a little humour into her work with her ambiguously titled ‘By the Chinaberry Tree, near Tipton, Georgia, 1938.’ The snapshot depicts a ‘working-man’ struggling with a large farmyard pig and was deemed by Lange worthy of recording the accompanying man’s ‘articulate fuming.[12]’
“The pig – she took up and ‘cided she warn’t goin’ no fudder ... ah don’t like this pushin’ and pullin.[13]’”
Parr often makes pictures that are intentionally funny. He invites us to comment on society as he has, with a wry and satirical observation. It is very important not to underestimate the significance of humour in the work. It categorises it in a different way. While the term ‘light-hearted’ is one often associated with Parr’s work I feel this is perhaps an expression that should come with a tone of caution. As Robert Adams critiques:
“Our art has surveyed all the incriminating juxtapositions, all the plastic flamingos on the front lawn.[14]”
Parr demonstrates his ability to recognise the importance of ‘plastic flamingos’ in his photobooks ‘Sign of the Times’ (1992) and ‘Think of England’ (2002). It is of note here to comment even on the title of the latter – ‘lie back and think of England’ an expression supposedly used in the United Kingdom in the Victorian era as advice to a young woman about to enter into a sexual relationship with her new husband. This bawdy comment is used to great effect here but we also think of Baudelaire’s prophetic statement that when it came to art he could “laugh but no longer smile.[15]”
Parr plays upon our traditions and stereotypes to draw us to our conclusion about the content of these images. As Barthes says, our different kinds of knowledge are invested in the image and that this brings into play a typology. Every sign that Parr gives us corresponds to a “body of attitudes” with this forming a person’s idiolect or understanding of the work. He uses a very familiar lexicon of images to engage the viewer; things we find to be funny or ironic. In “Sign of the Times: a portrait of the nation’s tastes” there is a photograph of a false Edwardian-style pair of gold lamé curtains. The ostentatious garish quality of the curtain is highlighted by the accompanying text. The picture itself is untitled but the text is a direct quote from the owner of the curtains who claims that:
“I get such pleasure from them every day when I sit in the bath.[16]”
Parr lets us draw our own conclusion from the statement. This household furnishing, unimaginably tacky to most gives their owner ‘such pleasure’ – a phrase implying that the amount of pleasure is so much it is indescribable. It is hanging in the bathroom, this in itself lending an undertone of toilet humour to the gag. The complexities of issues such as personal taste, class structure in Britain, social mobility, cultural assimilation and branded goods are all being addressed here. Upon first glance however, the viewer’s automatic reaction is to the humour of the work. Nicholas Barker’s accompanying text in the book invites us to question why so little attention has been paid to the “innumerable ordinary decisions taken by people during the course of their everyday lives.[17]” Parr asks us the very same question with a devastating frankness and humour.
In 2003 the Tate Modern hosted an exhibition by Martin Parr entitled “Cruel and Tender.” A series of merchandise was made for the event with a number of fridge magnets depicting Parr’s imagery being sold throughout. Parr recounts the event as:
“a great achievement to get published by the Tate, but as fridge magnets. I think it’s funny.[18]”
To Parr, this was perhaps the ultimate consideration of his work – he dubbed it “the high chapel and it’s low art.[19]” He has of course collected the magnets and has them attached to his fridge. As an artist he has allowed the work to become something else entirely – he and the viewer are once again on the same side of the picture frame, standing outside, laughing uproariously. He has also accumulated a collection of photography applied to domestic ware – crockery decorated with imagery of Margaret Thatcher and watches bearing the face of Saddam Hussein. Through collecting such a vast array of objects and imagery Parr allows himself to “harness apparent contradictions without comment.[20]” Not unlike his own photography, these pieces once collated give an altogether different meaning. Photographs of empty parking spaces, viewed in this manner become “metaphysical gaps, which we may fill with thought.[21]” Sophie Calle’s collection of actions; routines and deliberations performed by others, works in much the same way. She studies an email objectively, inviting different people to react to the closing line; “take care of yourself.” She invites a number of chosen people to:
“Analyse it, comment on it, dance it, sing it. Dissect it. Exhaust it. Understand it for me. Answer it for me.[22]”
She considers their subsequent reactions as one would consider advice from a friend regarding the break-down of a relationship, ended via email. She, like Parr, has an interest in formalising the ephemeral – the grounding of the fleeting. It is by collecting things that are in transience; moods, reactions, letters and images of the very ordinary that Parr and Calle create a construct not only of our reality but of the reality of humanity. Calle’s decision to de- and reconstruct the email came from a realisation that the writing was “not flat but fraught with metaphor.[23]” Parr’s special attention to the banal regurgitates various forms of cliché. Metaphor and cliché exist because we exist and it is our existence that Parr and Calle confront themselves and subsequently we the viewer with. The “Exquisite Pain” of Sophie Calle is all the more exquisite due to our appreciation of the quality of pain and the sardonic humour of Parr’s “Phone Book” encapsulates not only our technological modern age but the essence of modern humanity.
Richard Billingham’s first group exhibition entitled “Who’s Looking at the Family?” (1994) also contained pieces by Martin Parr. Like both Calle and Parr, Billingham’s work raises questions about the nature of photo-documentation as art. Billingham’s 1997 publication “Ray’s a Laugh” drew an automatic comparison to Parr’s “The Last Resort.” Billingham’s photo-book contains snapshot pictures of his family taken over a six year period in the early 1990s. The first comparison here is an obvious one – the snapshot style of photography, the illustration of the unstaged and the nature of realism in the work. Billingham has stated that:
“I’ve always wanted to move people as much as I can, so much that they cry. Sometimes, women look at the book and they cry and I think ‘I’ve done it.’[24]”
Calle also offers herself and her situation up to the viewer, allowing us to dissect the most painful and tragic experiences of her life. This blood-letting binds all three artists together in voyeurism. Both Billingham and Parr encourage the spectator to consider “ones relation to class (structure) and poverty.[25]” Each artist’s photograph encapsulates the need for political change with Thatcher’s Britain playing a role in each photograph – an unwitting character throughout. The issue of class struggle is raised again and again by spectators upon viewing these representations of life in 1980s and 1990s Britain. Parr and Billingham challenge the classical canon of portraiture and still-life painting. As with Parr, Billingham’s presentation of his family portraits demonstrates his ability to recognise the importance of the crude and the extreme in art. It has been asked about Billingham what is the purpose of publishing so brutal and private a memoir? I feel it is because so much of modern art focuses on political and class struggle but with the artist as cool observer – an arbitrary but engaged witness allowing our gaze to fall on the unjust in our society. Billingham’s charm lies in that he is:
“a part of rather than apart from, which distinguishes him from the tradition of documentary photography that is based on the difference between the observer and the subject.[26]”
The theme of the domestic and the undercurrent of violence evoke in people a strong reaction of humour or revulsion. The laughter or tears provoked by Billingham’s work is a response that Jan Estep believes is necessary in order for the viewer to shake off “some excess of feeling.[27]” As with Parr and Calle, the photographs invoke our discomfort. It would seem that the more comfortable you are with your place in society the more comfortable you will be with Billingham’s brutal depiction. Whilst some abhor this tradition of autobiographical photography many find it necessary in order to critique the “otherwise unregarded proletarian subject matter.[28]” Billingham’s work has also drawn theories about the notion of metaphor with Outi-Remes stating that the images offer, at a metaphorical level, the suggestion of “the impossibility of closeness.[29]” Whilst obvious comparisons are drawn between Parr and Billingham’s supposed exploitation of their chosen subject matter, it is worth noting that the “Ray’s a Laugh” series were originally taken as a series of reference photos for Billingham’s figurative paintings. Calle too has come under fire for using the fiercely personal subject of her mother’s death in order to create her art. Yet when we examine the chosen topic once more – the creation of the sublime through the ordinary – what is more ordinary, and extraordinary, than death?
In 1986, Parr’s photography made a marked shift from black-and-white to colour. It was after this switch that Parr claimed the previous black-and-white images had been “romanticising and nostalgic” in its refusal to look at the ugly side of working class life. The notion of a black-and-white image as having a nostalgic and emotional content is of course an accurate one. Seen this way, images often take on a different role. As with the oil painting of a still-life scene we lend to this type of image a certain gravitas. Black-and-white imagery connotes a different era and contains a different essence. They herald a modern classicism, drawing attention to older and different aspects of social existence – war photography or 1950s Hollywood actors for example. In “The Last Resort, New Brighton” Parr’s photography takes on a new role. If we associate the classic and the iconic with simplistic, emotionally charged black-and-white images then Parr challenges our associations here. The work is abrupt, the images are visceral. Lurid pinks clash with acid greens. The sweets, jellies, wasps and shaved heads are explicit snapshots of a society mired in cliché and stereotype. Gerry Badger has said of Parr’s work “we wince as much as we smile.[30]”
Parr has found a new way to document humanity. In amongst the ‘kiss-me-quick’ hats and donkey rides of New Brighton, Parr found a new type of social commentary as well as a new way of engaging our thoughts about it:
“With photography, I like to create fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society’s natural prejudice and giving this a twist.[31]”
Parr’s subject matter was not the sunburnt feet, flip-flops and chip-shop queues of a ‘working class’ English summer as they might have been were they ‘classicised’ in black-and-white. Instead, he invokes in viewers questions about life under Margaret Thatcher’s rule in 1980’s Britain. He queries mass consumption in a burgeoning fast-food nation. It is these and not the black and white images from his portfolio that he says reflect his own feelings of angst about culture. He has been described as a “dry cultural observer of the underobserved culture[32]” and it is this that I believe to be so fundamentally important about the work of Martin Parr.
Let us again examine the notion of a modern iconography. We no longer look to religion as our primary resource for ideas on ‘how to live.’ Moralistic guidance comes in many different forms. Religion today is interpreted to suit beliefs and justifies actions rather than gives relevant guidance. Many have discarded religion wholly, looking to other sources for meaning and construct in society. The original iconographies have been done away with. The average teenager today recognises more images from popular culture than the original icons of Jesus Christ. We live in a society governed by celebrity. Brand-names mean big business and are marketed to us in such a way that we now have ‘celebritorial’ rather than religious aspirations. Advertising campaigns are loaded with false moralistic guidance about racism (Benetton, 1996) and ironies such as a “Campaign for Real Beauty” (Dove, 2006 - present) from a cosmetics company. This is not something that has escaped the notice of Martin Parr. He has famously collected and photographed celebrity memorabilia – wallpaper and crisp packets here take on a new meaning. These photographs again speak about the very ordinary in contemporary popular culture and in doing so get us to look at the bigger picture. Parr is getting us to question the notion of fame as a promotional tool/moral code. The very idea of fame is to sell an ideal or a particular unattainable lifestyle yet we allow ourselves to be guided by this falseness. There is a strange contradiction in what we are visually engaging in. The messages and physical remnants of advertisement promotion once collected and examined convey a very different message. It is, as one critic has said of the work:
“Widely political documentation, being a critique on political and social structures that fail people; that set up systems which are designed only to allow these people to fail.[33]”
It would not be possible to examine the notion of what makes a particular set of images iconic without discussing the use of symbols within these iconographies. It has been said that a symbolic image is only able to trigger responses in the viewer because it already represents to us some “value that is fundamental.[34]” These values include our circumstance in society and our particular definition of what it is to be human. As Barthes has said, our various reading of imagery depends on our different kinds of knowledge and which particular set of these we invest in an image in order to comprehend its meaning. This “plurality and co-existence of lexicons[35]” is in each individual with these forming the basis of our understanding. Parr uses a symbolic rhetoric in order to convey his ideas – floral dresses, suburban lawns, sea-side scenes, flags, buns, cups of tea form the basis of his work. When we see a close-up image of a shaved head or a set of motorbike leathers Parr is triggering something in us that recognises these symbols and puts forward our predetermined set of ideals about them. These photographs use symbols of humanity and therefore become symbols for humanity themselves. By portraying this set of symbols over and over again, Parr is saying something about their repeated inclusion in the images. He wants us to recognise the banalities and idiosyncrasies of the everyday and people as important. Chips in plastic wrappers, false red talon-like nails, blow-up dolls and wasps trapped in jelly all viewed under the title of “Common Sense” scream intelligibilities about a common culture so overloaded with imagery it is almost impossible to discern what symbolises what anymore.
The term ‘documentary’ was coined by Scottish film-maker John Grierson in 1926 in order to define what he said was “work based upon the creative interpretation of reality.[36]” This type of photography reflects a particular point of view with Parr’s brand of scrutiny used as a powerful tool. Parr’s documenting of objects often involves his zooming in on the subject with the colours taking on a raw intensity that would have otherwise perhaps been lost. Critic Martha Rosler questions the bravery but also the “manipulativeness” of documentary photographers. As a viewer we need to question this in Parr’s work – does the zoom lens add to or take away from our understanding? By documenting things like “Boring Postcards” and people’s housing interior how is Parr creating an iconography for our time? It has been said that Parr’s work is too steeped in humour and sarcasm for it to be truly iconic. It has also been argued that the work focuses on a uniquely Western or British society for it to be universal – the themes are too local in order for it to achieve the longevity needed for the truly iconic.
Having examined much of the Parr archive I feel that he is one of the most important photographers of our time. Although the work employs both humour and conveys the trivial, the depth of this illustration is what first of all makes the viewer sit up and take notice. There is something we can all identify with here – the visual parameter is not outside of anybody’s reach. The themes are ones now explored universally and Parr has managed to breathe some new life into a visual world rife with fruit and goblets. We live in an age where youth culture no longer recognises the iconic without an overtone of celebrity to glamorise it. Parr has glamorised the mundane here and we are all invited to observe and comment. In our lifetime we have twenty-four hour access to the brutality of humanity on news channels and reality television programmes. Parr gets our attention in a different way and makes us examine the very same issue. These ‘light-hearted’ images are broadcasting loudly about important issues – mass-consumerism, celebrity culture, fast-food, obesity, the breakdown of social class groups in society. We are continually caught up in the deluge of images of the suffering and the overlooked in society. Parr has cleverly sneaked his images into our consciousness in an already over-saturated market. While the documentary style nature of photography is something that is executed according to a convention, a new style of looking at imagery has been created here.
Martin Parr himself uses the term ‘propaganda’ to describe the “constantly growing flood of images released by the media[37].” His objective is to fight the deluge in a way that is universally accessible and understandable. He likens humanity to a cast of characters on a soap opera – he waits for the correct cast to come together and highlights the greedy and sometimes ridiculous nature of our race. We are all targets for the media. It is human nature to observe, criticise and laugh at the social mores of others. Martin Parr takes us on a voyage of self-discovery. He asks us are we really so different from the people he has photographed? His current work focuses on the rising iconic symbols of our time –the mobile phone, the über-rich in new pan-national societies, beach culture. The same themes run throughout the work however. His work is no less noble than Lange’s worthy documentary of human suffering. It is relevant and it represents a new set of signifiers recognisable to our generation en masse.
Artists like Martin Parr, Sophie Calle and Richard Billingham are a representative of what I feel is a new canon of art. Their work represents that which is iconic in our time. Although the subject matter is frequently unglamorous and the content surprising, the work is fresh and captivating. We live in an age where aspiration is limited now, not by social class but by our own definition of greatness. Much of humanity lives a life unlived – magazine and reality television celebrity offer a glamorous alternative to possessing talent and creativity. We are shown a false reality. Whilst Parr and Billingham utilise reality in their work it is not this televisual reality that we have allowed to become the very definition of the word. Parr, Billingham and Calle take situations in life and offer them up to us as an alternative to pop-culture. The break-down of a relationship is a horrendous time in any person’s life, as is the death of a mother or sibling. It is however, a true and uncompromising version of reality. These are things that are inevitable –they will happen to us all. Calle seems to be telling us to face our realities, however difficult, however uncomfortable, because at their very essence, they are real. Realness is a quality missing from our current cultural trend – ‘reality television’ is the ultimate oxymoron.
Parr has chosen to show us the things that surround us in order to get us to examine our own sense of achievement and worth. The notion that we matter, that our existence is worth something, is recognised in a different way. The extremes of Lange’s portraits contrasted with those of Richard Billingham’s offer us a new personal significance. The observational nature of these artists lead us to definite and perhaps previously unheralded conclusions about the truly iconic. We are forced to examine the essence of tradition. Calle implores friends to repeatedly react to a personal text. Parr shows us the seaside tradition of British culture. Billingham puts forward the notion that the very ordinary in society is truly extraordinary. They create a new form of narrative to engage with their viewer. François Brunet shows us that Parr has achieved the ultimate consideration when recounting the depth of his vision stating that the work:
“proves that it is still quite possible, in the post-modern era to become (or to produce oneself as) a ‘master of photography’ in a relatively traditional sense.[38]”
Parr heralds a welcome return to the real. His work combines the fiercely critical, the satirical, the observational and the traditional. The photographs and collections whilst constructed by Parr, escape photography’s potential to manipulate. He does not offer up his work for worship and yet, it has become a symbol for our generation. He has said:
“I looked around at what my colleagues were doing, and asked myself, 'What relationship has it with what's going on?' I found there was a great distortion of contemporary life. Photographers were interested only in certain things. A visually interesting place, people who were either very rich or very poor, and nostalgia[39].”
When asked what it was that made his photography different from that of others, Parr’s response was that he felt that he had:
“...managed to find a language through photography that I can call my own. It's like having a signature. This takes a long time to develop, but now you can look at my photographs and sort of tell that I took them[40].”
His work is uniquely poised to become a principal reference for our generation. His style and manner are no less significant today than they were twenty years ago. He represents the truly iconic employing a cutting voice and new language to ask the necessary questions about our nature with an accuracy and devastation impossible for humanity to ignore.
[1] Hella, Beloff, Image as Icon, Photography: a Critical Introduction, Ed. Liz Wells, 2002, p.44-45
[2] Koetzle, Hans Michael, Photo Icons, the Story Behind the Pictures, Volume I, Taschen, 2001, p.7
[3] Barthes, Roland, The Rhetoric of the Image, The Photography Reader, Edited by Wells, Liz, 2003, p. 120-124
[4] Barthes, Roland, The Rhetoric... p. 120
[5] Bunker, Nicholas, Parr, Martin, Signs of the Times: a Portrait of the Nation’s Tastes, Cornerhouse Publications, 1992, Introductory text
[6] Pacquement, Alfred, Sophie Calle, M’as-tu-vue, Preface, Prestel, 2003, p.15
[7] Pacquement, Alfred, Sophie Calle, M’as-tu-vue... p.20
[8] Pacquement, Alfred, Sophie Calle, M’as-tu-vue... p.21
[9] Coomer, Martin, “Watches of Mass Destruction,” Modern Painters, Vol. 20, p.41, October 2008
[10] Dillon, Brian, “Take Care of Yourself,” Art Review, Vol. 12, p.68, January 2007
[11] Calle, Sophie, Exquisite Pain, Thames and Hudson, p.After Unhappiness
[12] Adams, Robert, Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews, Aperture, 1996, p.23-24
[13] Adams, Robert, Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews, Aperture, 1996, p.23-24
[14] Adams, Robert, Why People Photograph: Selected Essays and Reviews, Aperture, 1996, p. 23
[15] Adams, Robert, Why People Photograph...p.23
[16] Barker, Nicholas, Parr, Martin, Signs of the Times: a Portrait of the Nation’s Tastes, Cornerhouse Publications, 1992
[17] Barker, Nicholas, Parr, Martin, Signs of the Times: a Portrait of the Nation’s Tastes...
[18] Coomer, Martin, “Watches of Mass Destruction,” Modern Painters, Vol. 20, p.41
[19] ,Coomer, Martin, “Watches of Mass Destruction,’...p.41
[20] Coomer, Martin, “Watches of Mass Destruction,” Modern Painters, Vol. 20, p.41
[21] Koestenbaum, Wayne, “Martin Parr’s Parking Spaces,” Aperture, no.189, Winter, 2007, p.76
[22] Dillon, Brian, “Take Care of Yourself,” Art Review, Vol. 12, p.68, January 2007
[23] Dillon, Brian, “Take Care of Yourself,” Art Review, Vol. 12, p.70
[24] Estep, Jan, “Ha ha ha: Ray’s a Laugh,” New Art Examiner 27 no1, Summer, 1999, p.28
[25] Remes, Outi, “Reinterpreting Unconventional Family Photographs, Returning to Richard Billingham’s ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ Series,” Afterimage 34, no.6, May/June, 2007, p.17
[26] Remes, Outi, “Reinterpreting Unconventional Family Photographs, Returning to Richard Billingham’s ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ Series,” ... p.18
[27] Estep, Jan, “Ha ha ha: Ray’s a Laugh,” New Art Examiner 27 no1, Summer, 1999, p.28
[28] Remes, Outi, “Reinterpreting Unconventional Family Photographs, Returning to Richard Billingham’s ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ Series,” ... p.17
[29] Op.Cit
[30] Parr, Martin, Think of England, Phaidon, 2000
[31] www.magnumphotos.com/archive
[32] Goldberg, Vicky, Light Matters: Writing on Photography, Aperture, 2005, p. 139
[33] Alistair Fitchett, The Story of the Blues (or the photography of Martin Parr),2002, www.tangents.co.uk
[33] Tisseron, Serge, What is a Symbolic Image? Bauret, Gabriel, Hill, John. T., Mora, Gilles, W. Eugene Smith; the Camera as Conscience, Thames and Hudson, London, 1998, p.69
[35] Barthes, Roland, The Rhetoric... p. 120
[36] Ellis, Jack, C., John Grierson. A Guide to References and Resources, Boston: G. K. Hall, 1986
[37] www.martinparr.com
[38] Brunet, François, , Martin Parr, Works 1971- 2001, Aperture,no.182, Spring, 2006, p.16
[39] www.photoquotes.com/martinparr
[40] www.bbc.co.uk/blast/art/people/martin_parr.shtml