{"id":20752,"date":"2019-09-12T21:09:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T19:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/?p=20752"},"modified":"2020-10-20T15:02:19","modified_gmt":"2020-10-20T13:02:19","slug":"only-human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/profile\/work\/only-human\/","title":{"rendered":"Only Human"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Standing before his acerbic photographs, you simply have to smile. Fascinated by British identity, which he finds both attractive and repulsive, this disciple of vernacular photography<\/a>, a chronicler of daily life, has been shooting images of his compatriots since the 1970s. His shots embody the impacts of globalization\u2014mass consumption and tourism, migrations\u2014, boredom, the kitschiest side of the British working class, as well as entertainment society at its most ridiculous, with a biting irony that has become his calling card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, the humor in his most recent exhibition \u201cOnly Human\u201d, presented at the National Portrait Gallery of London<\/a>, is more grating than usual. Beyond the cursory entertainment, the photographs translate a profound pessimism over the political instability that has gripped the United Kingdom. In fact, an entire room is dedicated to shots taken in \u201cPro-Brexit\u201d regions: Black Country, Cornwall, Essex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this room, visitors come across a pit bull donning a small red and white coat \u2013 the canine clone of his owners dressed in St George\u2019s Day colors-, red-faced Welsh farmers battling with undisciplined sheep in a contest, retirees meeting in a supermarket, or even a community of Cornwall fishermen, all displayed on equal footing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Martin Parr, a self-proclaimed \u201cfervent European\u201d, this encounter with the \u201cLeave\u201d-voting majority in more modest and remote regions may seem like a kind of \u201cpsychoanalysis\u201d. But it also sheds light on the multicultural reality of a society that is more complex than it seems. The Cornwall fishermen, for example, contrary to popular thought, are far from being intransient \u201cBrexiters\u201d. Although the current European quotas do not always play in their favor, many of them know that losing trade deals with Europe could be catastrophic: they affect about 75% of British fishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the artist seems satisfied with capturing the daily lives of ordinary people, his photos are not overtly political. The omnipresent Union Jack (flag of the UK) and the closed faces symptomatic of a Great Britain in the throes of upheaval, reveal concern about the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the exhibit, one title stands out, reminding visitors as they leave of the dilemma that has been tearing at the United Kingdom for three years now: \u201cLeave\u201d or \u201cRemain\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translation by Maya Dalinsky<\/strong>
Cover:<\/strong> Martin Parr, Only Human,<\/em> Pha\u00efdon 2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Standing before his acerbic photographs, you simply have to smile. Fascinated by British identity, which he finds both attractive and repulsive, this disciple of vernacular photography, a chronicler of daily life, has been shooting images of his compatriots since the 1970s. His shots embody the impacts of globalization\u2014mass consumption and tourism, migrations\u2014, boredom, the kitschiest<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101027,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1845],"tags":[1898],"corpus":[],"post_types":[1329],"associate_editors":[],"authors":[1486],"class_list":["post-20752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-profile","tag-work","post_types-chronique-en","authors-zoe-cosson-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101027"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20752"},{"taxonomy":"corpus","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/corpus?post=20752"},{"taxonomy":"post_types","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_types?post=20752"},{"taxonomy":"associate_editors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/associate_editors?post=20752"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=20752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}