Martin Parr, the peerless chronicler of everyday absurdity, did not live to see his final exhibition at the Jeu de Paume in Paris, but Global Warning is a dazzling swansong. The show, which is set to be the museum's most visited on record, captures Parr's irresistible good humour while revealing a darker edge.
Parr, who died in December last year, was always popular in France, perhaps because the French loved his ability to mock the English. But in the end, he mocked everyone, including himself. The exhibition presents his work in all its gluttonous, giddy glory, with large prints that showcase his deliciously saturated colours.
The photographs are rooted in Parr's famous subject of tourism, from British seaside resorts to the orange tans of Benidorm. He saw the seaside as a place where the quest for leisure becomes a slog, as crowds heave and rubbish piles up. The tone darkens in images from Bali and Gambia, where the wealth and power gap between white tourists and local labourers is laid bare.
Parr positioned himself as a complicit participant in the consumerist frenzy he documented. In one image, a woman in Venice struggles to frame a photo as pigeons land on her, while another shows a Trump supporter clutching a doll of the then-candidate. Everything becomes product, and the show leaves a creeping sense of doom.
Few people in the pictures seem to have noticed Parr, whose unassuming appearance was his superpower. He accepted the world as it was, without trying to change it, and this makes Global Warning an edifyingly consistent and clear final chapter.
