Martin Parr: Early Works / Freiraum für fotographie, Berlin

Alex Benjamin · Thursday at 8:34 AM

For those in or near Berlin in the coming weeks...

Martin Parr. Early Works | fhochdrei

Die Ausstellung Martin Parr. Early Works konzentriert sich auf das frühe Werk des Magnum-Fotografen.

fhochdrei.org

From the website:

"The exhibition Martin Parr. Early Works focuses on the early work of the MAGNUMphotographer and presents 75 rarely shown black and white images. Bird clubs in Surrey, pilgrimages to the Pope in Ireland, holiday trips to the Scottish Highlands, provincial football matches, and traditional village banquets are just some of the social events that grasped the young Martin Parr’s attention. Exaggeration and emphasis – two key elements of his work – run like a thread through these photographs. The strength of his images lies in the precise observation of everyday situations and in their focus on the seemingly unspectacular. Local traditions, street life, and the unforgettable fluctuating island weather: Martin Parr compels us to take a second look and cherish the funny sides of life."

pentaxuser · Thursday at 3:18 PM

In one of the two programmes shown recently on BBC 4 which I mentioned in the Martin Parr Appreciation thread there were a few photos from this early work in b&w which I actually preferred to his later colour work

pentaxuser

cliveh · Thursday at 3:56 PM

pentaxuser said:
In one of the two programmes shown recently on BBC 4 which I mentioned in the Martin Parr Appreciation thread there were a few photos from this early work in b&w which I actually preferred to his later colour work

pentaxuser

I would agree with this and think he diverted because he wanted his own unique style, rather than develop his natural talent in black& white. HCB was quite critical of his colour images, but Parr would rather follow fashion and fame rather than stick with the old school.

Alex Benjamin · Thursday at 4:24 PM

cliveh said:
HCB was quite critical of his colour images

Yes, he was critical of Parr's photographs, but not because they were in color, but because they were, well, by Martin Parr. Here's the story as told on the Magnum website (emphasis mine):

In 1994, Martin Parr became a full member of Magnum Photos, but his admission to the agency had been acutely divisive.

The Last Resort, his international breakthrough from eight years earlier, triggered both shock and acclaim for its highly original yet unromanticized view of a down-at-heel seaside town in northern England. Many perceived a cruelly mocking eye to his photographs from New Brighton. And his follow-ups, such as The Cost of Living (1989), in which he turned his attention on the middle classes, and Signs of the Times (1991), which examined perceptions of class and taste, only compounded that view.

One of his detractors was Henri Cartier-Bresson who had co-founded Magnum nearly five decades earlier, espousing the principle that all people share common experiences and should be photographed with empathy and solidarity. He believed Parr’s work to be the antithesis of this humanist approach, and told him so after seeing the Englishman’s latest series in Paris in 1995, opening up a notorious if short-lived spat by declaring, “We belong to two different solar systems”.

Parr faxed back his witty retort, answering, “I acknowledge there is a large gap between your celebration of life and my implied criticism of it… What I would query with you is, ‘Why shoot the messenger?’”

The two photographers were eventually reconciled, brought together over lunch by Martine Franck, Cartier-Bresson’s wife and a fellow Magnum photographer.

Martin Parr x Henri Cartier-Bresson | Magnum Photos Magnum Photos

Diane Smyth talks to François Hébel, the outgoing director of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, about his exhibition bringing together two of Magnum's most influential — yet seemingly diametrically opposed — photographers.

www.magnumphotos.com

pentaxuser · Thursday at 4:58 PM

Alex Benjamin said:
Yes, he was critical of Parr's photographs, but not because they were in color, but because they were, well, by Martin Parr. Here's the story as told on the Magnum website (emphasis mine):

Well from the source you mention he was critical of what he may have perceived to be a "new style Martin Parr " but might this not have been "new style" simply because what he photographed was a starker setting than his earlier b&w shots of what looked to be a gentler era

The last resort happened to be New Brighton, a North-Western seaside resort. Such resorts as this and say Blackpool further up the coast were never as "genteel" even long before the 1980s in contrast to the areas and people in his earlier b&w shots

So he may have been reflecting simply what he saw as he was in his earlier b&w era but I agree that the move to colour made his pictures look harsher

pentaxuser

cliveh · Thursday at 5:22 PM

Yes, he was critical of Parr's photographs, but not because they were in color, but because they were, well, by Martin Parr. Here's the story as told on the Magnum website (emphasis mine):

I didn't mention colour.

Alex Benjamin · Thursday at 6:18 PM

Not to be picky about it, but I believe you did...

cliveh said:
HCB was quite critical of his colour images

Martin Parr: Early Works / Freiraum für fotographie, Berlin

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