15/01/15: Martin Parr talks about his work in the
Andrew Brownsword Gallery at the Holburne Museum Bath.
Martin Parr in profile is waiting to deliver his
talk. I am sure that there is an ironic link between his satire and the
portraits by Gainsborough, Reynolds & Stubbs looking down on us, but
it escapes me, I think.
Martin Parr, Regency photographer.
Who would have guessed that Parr got hooked on
photography because his father was a twitcher? I was intrigued to hear that he
has published over 80 books of photographs: a prodigious outpouring of images –
not all his own.
My research before the event threw up an interesting
(for me) find: in his book “Bending the frame”, Fred Ritchin quotes
Martin Parr: ”I’m not going out doing campaigning photojournalism because
nobody wants that anymore, … There is the old approach
whereby you try to change the world. Nobody is going to obliterate war,
famine, AIDS, and all the other things that are the usual subject matter that
more campaigning photojournalists would be attracted to. I shoot
interesting subject matter but disguise it as entertainment. That’s what
people want in magazines.” (p 22).
In her introduction to the talk, the museum director,
Jennifer Scott, presented Parr as the Rowlandson of our times. The museum
had extended its exhibition of the satirical cartoons by Thomas Rowlandson
(1756 – 1827) because of public demand and, I suspect, to coincide with the
talk by a 21st Century satirist. The cartoons satirise
the society of Rowlandson’s time much as William Hogarth (1697 – 1764) did
before him. The main difference is that Rowlandson’s artwork focuses on
sexual proclivities of the society of his time whereas Hogarth & Parr have
a more varied range of topics. Throughout the talk, MP stressed that he
makes fiction of reality: don’t all artists do that? I think I missed
what he was trying to say there. Whereas the art buyers/viewers in
Rowlandson & Hogarth’s times could distance themselves from the satire
because the artist could use artistic license in their paintings, Parr’s
viewers, in seeing themselves in photographs, find themselves linked to the
images much more directly than their counterparts did in the artistic
cartoons of the 17th, 18th & 19th
Centuries.
Before the talk, there was a slide on the screen of
the front cover of Phaidon’s book “Martin Parr” on which there is
the statement: “Martin Parr’s photos can make us feel very uncomfortable.
He has made a comedy about the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the places we
go; he scrutinises the very way we live our lives. Some might say that
Martin Parr has exploited our lack of taste and good judgement by picturing it
all latterly in the brightest of colours, exposing our petty vanities to the
world. “ I wonder how many people in the audience in Bath felt
uncomfortable? The talk was sold out. Did the paying public think
that they were above being used for entertainment? Ironically, in one of
the images shown on the screen about a meeting in Bath, one of those present
(in the ‘reserved’ front row) knew the people in the image. Was she
embarrassed? MP was, because he giggled self-consciously and said: ”They
might sue me!” Could he extend his range of subjects to cover courtroom
scenes?
I wonder if, when we buy magazines we do so because we
want to laugh at ourselves? I asked MP if he had to explain his images
(which mock UK society) when he presents his work abroad. He replied that
the French love his work in this regard and laugh heartily because that is how
they see the English too. In answering another
question, MP stated that when he presents his work in the UK the media ignore
him. Might there be a link between these two answers?
What I also learned from his talk was that MP likes to
produce open-ended, ambiguous photographs which he feels leave the viewers free
to make of them what they will. What is the object of satire?
The online Oxford Dictionary defines it as: “The use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.” Martin Parr’s work adds
‘taste’ and ‘good judgement’ to the list. Does that mean that he is the
arbiter of such things? William Hogarth revealed “a desire to go
beyond the negative premises of satire … and to provide instead exempla of
human conduct, to make his art ‘useful’ in a way that it had never been before.’
(P167). Parr claims he wants ‘to entertain’ because ‘that’s what people
want …’ (see above) & I suppose that could be termed ‘useful’.
Finally, Parr showed us a range of photographs taken
of him by various photographers around the world in which I felt he was mocking
them while we ostensibly laughed at what he looked like and at the foreign
photographer. We were certainly entertained by being brought
face-to-face with the bad taste shown by the British public over the decades
and by the photographs of Parr himself. Far from being a Regency
photographer, Parr is very much in tune with our times. This guarantees
that he will never run out of subject matter for his satirical portraits of
individuals or social groups because, as is the case with ‘war, famine &
AIDS’, nobody is going to obliterate stupidity, politics, vices or bad taste
which are present in all of us without exception.
References:
Bindman, D.: Hogarth. Thames & Hudson.1981
Parr,M & Williams, V.: Martin Parr. Phaidon.
2014
Ritchin,F.: Bending the frame. Aperture. 2010
.JPG)
