Martin Parr

Martin Parr (*1952) is one of the most renowned photographers worldwide. The “chronicler of our times” made his international breakthrough in the mid-1980s with his series Last Resort showing British beach holiday scenes. His “terribly beautiful pictures” have since influenced countless photographers in the fields of documentary photography and street photography.
The exhibition at KUNST HAUS WIEN is the first major retrospective of the work of the famous Magnum photographer in Austria. Thirteen large groups of works – including Last Resort (1985), Bored Couples (1990–1993) and Luxury (2007–2011) – provide a comprehensive insight into Parr’s oeuvre. Especially for this exhibition Martin Parr has created the photo series Cakes and Balls (2015/16), a series on Vienna dealing with clichés and traditions of the Austrian capital city. For this purpose he visited places such as the Prater, numerous balls and cafés, allotments and the production facility of the Aida pastry chain.

Martin Parr intentionally directs our view to the rather odd and absurd aspects of everyday life – to the unspectacular, the commonplace, the normal, to the margins of everyday life that often remain unnoticed. His photographs provide a brutally honest picture of the very heart of our society and point to the excesses of the consumer society. Parr’s incessant photographic interest in different societal groups and their particularities has led him to many different places, both in terms of geography and typology. His images take us to typical tourist locations, organisations in rural areas, ballrooms or traditional photo studios.

Curated by Verena Kaspar-Eisert

The series Cakes and Balls could be realized with the kind support of OstLicht gallery.

The book on the new Vienna series Cakes & Balls – Martin Parr in Vienna is published by AnzenbergerEDITION.