So much has happened within the last couple of days. We had a lecture by Martin Parr on Wednesday and then had a seminar and tutorials with Fred Mann (of Fred Gallery, London) on Thursday last week.
Firstly, Martin Parr’s talk helped me to clarify something critical within my own working practice; he touched upon something I have been wondering about for a while, which is this intriguing yet elusive issue of multiples and repetition. It is obvious from his work that he is also interested in visual multiplicity, and he is also an obsessive collector.
His prolific photographic career has spanned many years and his work, amongst other things, highlights the irony and humour of British culture. I am really interested in this element of accessibility- everyone, not just ‘arty’ people can appreciate his work- they can familarize with it- see themselves within it. The majority of his work consists of compiling images (his own and other people’s) into photographic books. Interestingly enough, he compares the physical process of taking photos to that of collecting. “By applying some order to our chaotic world, and assembling things into categories and ultimately into a book or show, I can make a more coherent statement about my relationship to the world.” Parr (2008, p:3 Objects). It was only last week that I decided to explore in more depth the medium of photography. It is a cheap, accessible way of collecting a large number of everyday images – objects but in a 2D format. So I am able to achieve this element of repetition without having to spend a great deal of time and money on a large number of associated objects.
One piece of work that particularly stood out for me was Parking Spaces. This compilation of photographs depicts some of the last car parking spaces in 41 different countries. Like Jitish Kallat’s shirt pockets, each image is full of narrative and intrigue, and when put together in the context of a book, one next to another, the viewer (or reader) has the pleasure of comparing them and seeing them as a whole; this all results in a collective story full of variation and visual curiosity. When answering a question on how to distinguish a rubbish photo from a good one, he mentions the significance of a repeated image within a conceptual framework; “You can get away within a conceptual project with weaker photographs whereby if you take them on their own they’re not very good, but if you put ten of them together they make sense, like the parking spaces for example.” But the question still echoes in my mind – why? Why does it make sense if there are 10 images as opposed to just one?
