Being Boring

Met the photographer Martin Parr tonight. He has a small exhibition on at Pekin Fine Arts and this evening gave a talk at Bookworm, neither of which we were involved with, but we’re talking about a bigger one in a year or so.

I love his work. I remember Boring Postcards when it came out in 2000. The publisher was reluctant to take it on and only printed 2,000. It’s now on its 20^th or something reprint. He turns the mundane into something interesting, revels in kitsch and saturated colour, and both celebrates & pokes fun at middle class suburbia (a club in which he himself is a fully paid-up member).

He has published over 60 books, most of which he has co-designed. He is an obsessive collector, including 12,000 photography books which have spilled out of his Bristol house and into a warehouse. He also has, he thinks (and who are we to argue?), the world's largest collection of Saddam Hussein watches – that’s with the dead dictator's image on them, not those which once adorned his wrist. He’s now gone on to Gaddafi.

And he showed us an incredibly high-end production, limited edition book… of parking spaces around the world. So obsessed is he with documenting the trivia of everyday life, that one forgets he’s also a member of Magnum and actually gets commissioned to do more glamorous assignments – like fashion. If I was commissioning a fashion shoot, he’d be the last person I’d hire.