Martin Parr

FORTHCOMING & NEW RELEASES

MARTIN PARR: LIFE'S A BEACH
APERTURE
ISBN: 9781597112130 | US $25.00
Pub Date: 5/31/2013
Active | In stock

PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED

MARTIN PARR: THE NON-CONFORMISTS
Text by Susie Parr.
APERTURE
ISBN: 9781597112451 | US $45.00
Pub Date: 10/31/2013
Forthcoming

ACTIVE BACKLIST

MARTIN PARR: LIFE'S A BEACH
APERTURE
ISBN: 9781597112246 | US $200.00
Pub Date: 10/31/2012
Active | Not available

MARTIN PARR: BLISS
CHRIS BOOT
ISBN: 9780954281335 | US $24.95
Pub Date: 6/30/2009
Active | In stock

MARTIN PARR: LUXURY
Introduction by Paul Smith.
CHRIS BOOT
ISBN: 9781905712137 | US $40.00
Pub Date: 10/31/2009
Active | In stock

MARTIN PARR: PARRWORLD
Introduction to Postcards by Thomas Weski. Introduction to Objects by Martin Parr.
APERTURE
ISBN: 9781597110693 | US $89.95
Pub Date: 8/1/2008
Active | In stock

MARTIN PARR: MEXICO
Essay by Rogelio Villarreal.
APERTURE
ISBN: 9781597110310 | US $40.00
Pub Date: 10/15/2006
Active | Awaiting stock

Martin Parr

Martin Parr: The Non-Conformists

Text by Susie Parr.
Published by Aperture

In 1975, fresh out of art school, Martin Parr moved to the picturesque Yorkshire Pennine mill town of Hebden Bridge. Over a period of five years, he documented the town in photographs, showing in particular the aspects of traditional life that were beginning to decline. Susan Mitchell, whom he had met in Manchester and later married, joined Parr in documenting a year in the life of a small Methodist chapel, together with its farming community. Such chapels seemed to encapsulate the region’s disappearing way of life. Here Martin Parr found his photographic voice, while together he and Susie assembled a remarkable and touching historic document--now published in book form for the first time. The book takes its title from the Methodist and Baptist chapels that then characterized this area of Yorkshire and defined the fiercely independent character of the town. Non-Conformist Methodists reject the tenets of state Anglicism, and the Non-Conformist chapel of Hebden Bridge is central to the town and its community. In words and pictures, the Parrs vividly and affectionately document cobbled streets, flat-capped mill workers, hardy gamekeepers, henpecked husbands and jovial shop owners. The best Parr photographs are interwoven with Susie Parr’s detailed background descriptions of the society they observed.
Martin Parr (born 1952) is a key figure in the world of photography, recognized as a brilliant satirist of contemporary life. Author of more than 30 photography books, including Common Sense, Our True Intent Is All for Your Delight and Life’s a Beach, his photographs have been collected by museums worldwide, including the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Tate Modern, London. A retrospective of his work continues to tour major museums around the world since opening at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, in 2002. Parr is a member of Magnum Photos.

Martin Parr: Life's a Beach

Published by Aperture

Following on the heels of Martin Parr’s limited-edition, album-style publication Life’s a Beach, Aperture now presents this beach-friendly mini edition. Parr has been photographing the topic of the beach for many decades, documenting <\h><\h>sunbathers, rambunctious swimmers caught mid-plunge and the eternal sandy picnic. His international career, in fact, could well be traced to the publication of The Last Resort (1986), which depicted the seaside resort of New Brighton, near Liverpool. What is perhaps less known is that this obsession has led Parr to photograph beaches around the world. This compilation, his first on the topic, presents photos of beachgoers on far-flung shores, including Argentina, Brazil, China, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Japan, the United States, Mexico, Thailand, and of course, the U.K. The compilation brings to the forefront Parr’s engagement with a cherished subject matter--that rare public space in which general absurdities and local quirks seamlessly fuse together. This book shows Parr at his best, startling us with moments of captured absurdity and immersing us in rituals and traditions associated with beach life the world over.
Martin Parr (born 1952) is a key figure in the world of photography, recognized as a brilliant satirist of contemporary life. Author of over 30 photography books, including Common Sense, 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, New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Modern, London. A retrospective of his work continues to tour major museums around the world since opening at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, in 2002. Parr is a member of Magnum Photos.

Martin Parr: Life's a Beach

Published by Aperture

In the United Kingdom, one is never more than 75 miles away from the coast. With this much shoreline, it’s not surprising that there should be a thriving British tradition of seaside photography. American photographers may have invented street photography, but according to photographer Martin Parr, “in the U.K., we have the beach!” Here, he asserts, people can relax, be themselves and indulge in mildly eccentric British behavior. Parr has been photographing this subject for many decades, in close-ups of sun bathers, rambunctious swimmers caught mid-plunge and the eternal sandy picnic. (His career, in fact, could be traced back to the 1986 publication of The Last Resort, which depicted the seaside resort of New Brighton, near Liverpool.) This compilation presents photos of beachgoers on far-flung shores, including those of Argentina, Brazil, China, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Japan, the United States, Mexico, Thailand and of course, the U.K. Published to accompany the launch of an exhibition at the Lyon Photo Festival, this book brings to the forefront Parr’s engagement with a cherished subject. Featuring a Japanese binding and a front cover embossed with a seashell pattern, each copy of this ultra-collectible publication contains unique, beach-related paper ephemera from Parr’s own collection. The photographs themselves are inserted in die-cut slots, and protected by glassine pages.
Martin Parr (born 1952) is recognized and admired internationally as a brilliant satirist of contemporary life. The author of over 30 photography books, including Common Sense, 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, New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Modern, London. His retrospective continues to tour major museums around the world since opening at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, in 2002. Parr is a member of Magnum Photos.

Martin Parr: Bliss

Postcards of Couples and Families

Published by Chris Boot

Following Martin Parr's celebrated Boring Postcards series, a new installment of his bizarre postcard collection. Domestic icons in a Catholic tradition, these cards were produced in the countries of Southern Europe during the 1970s, showing shamelessly idealized photographs of romantic lovers--frolicking in the hills, holding hands in the sunset, staring dreamily into each others eyes--and of perfect families--greeting Dad after work, in the kitchen baking a cake with Mom, singing together at the piano... A revealing social-historical document and very funny, for all fans of Martin Parr and connoisseurs of photographic kitsch.

Martin Parr: Luxury

Introduction by Paul Smith.
Published by Chris Boot

With photography, I like to create fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society's natural prejudice and giving it a twist, says British photographer Martin Parr, who is most known for his satirical images of the ostentatiously wealthy. Luxury is Parr's epitaph to the age of conspicuous consumption, with candid images of the fabulously wealthy on the international party circuit: champagne-fuelled lunches, horse races, Moscow's Millionaire Fair, the Dubai Art Fair and the Beijing Motor Show, to name a few locales. Both biting and affectionate, this series, which comprises 35 works created between 2003 and 2009, is part of the touring exhibition Parrworld. Documenting the trends, tastes and social mores of the bourgeoisie--diamond encrusted jewelry, pure breed puppies, racecars, endless canapés and empty champagne bottles--Parr succeeds in capturing the cliché-laden tedium of excess, while making the whole scene seem a little more human. "Parr's mobile perspective and viewpoint is that of a housefly;" critic Neal Brown writes, characterizing the photographer's style as "buzzing around people's heads, landing on the edges of their plates and food displays, and viewing everything as a fantastically enlarged, over-colored world upon which to masticate regurgitated vomit, and enjoyably shit." Exquisitely designed, this volume--with a padded, gilt-foiled mock-leather cover--is the perfect souvenir of the era before the bubble burst. Also featured is an introduction by leading fashion designer and Martin Parr fan, Paul Smith.

Martin Parr: Parrworld

Objects and Postcards

Introduction to Postcards by Thomas Weski. Introduction to Objects by Martin Parr.
Published by Aperture

Martin Parr's vast collections of photography books and postcards are world-renowned. Unbeknownst to many, he is also an obsessive collector of photographic and themed objects. In Parrworld: Objects and Postcards, a luscious two-volume set, his affinity for focused accumulation is presented with appropriate thoroughness, and with typical Parrian humor. Some of the items in the first volume, Objects, have already achieved notoriety--for instance, the wrist watches featuring Saddam Hussein's visage. Others mythologize well-known figures such as Lenin and the Spice Girls. Then there is the kitsch--from wallpaper to trays and objects commemorating Sputnik, Charles and Di's wedding and 9/11. While Objects is the first publication to document Parr's 25-plus years of such collecting, Postcards is the "last word" on an extraordinary collection of over 20,000 cards. Presented in album format, it is a highly entertaining yet serious study of postcard history, and includes early cards that depict local news events such as car crashes and murders. The book finishes in Boring Postcards territory with a selection of cards promoting motorways and shopping.
Objects is introduced by Parr and Postcards features an introduction by Thomas Weski, curator of the companion exhibition, Parrworld. This remarkably designed set is bound to appeal to a wide audience, but in particular to Parr collectors who thought they already owned everything Parr.
Martin Parr, born in Epsom, England in 1952, is the author of more than 30 photography books, including Our True Intent Is All For Your Delight, Boring Postcards and Mexico. His photographs are held by museums worldwide, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Tate Modern, London. Parr is a member of Magnum Photos.

Martin Parr: Mexico

Essay by Rogelio Villarreal.
Published by Aperture

For much of his career, Martin Parr has specialized in skewering the eccentricities and peculiarities of his native Great Britain--in particular those having to do with food, tourism, bad fashion choices and÷ more food. Mexico is Parr's first new thematic series to be published in book form since 2002, a distinct geographical departure, and in part a greater departure as well. Parr is struck not only by Mexican culture, but also by the clear impact of America's pop culture and economy on Mexican life--the juxtaposition of Mickey Mouse with brightly colored saints, Nike logos with Day of the Dead skulls and Coca Cola with cacti. Here viewers are in recognizable territory with Parr's colorful close-ups of food, hats, signs and souvenirs, garishly shot with medical efficiency--but Mexico also includes some straight records of human faces, images that capture photographer and subject in the act of mutual contemplation. These moments of mercy are one with the underlying theme of Parr's more ironic work, calling up equally the corruption of authentic cultural forms by global consumer culture, which he both critiques and celebrates. As Parr puts it, "What I am saying is that it's a good and a bad thing. I'm constantly trying to express ambiguity. And that's what photography does very well."