Architectural photography is a genre seldom practised by Martin Parr. Although architecture is often present in his photographs, it is primarily as a jewellery case containing frequently tawdry, glaring human turpitudes and vanities.
To associate him with Gio Ponti may therefore come as a surprise. But that would be to forget how much interior design and decoration are pivotal to this photographer’s work. The man who in 1974 did an installation christened Home Sweet Home, a reflection on documentary photography via the recreation of a kitsch interior, had already shown a sustained interest in interiors, furniture and objects since June Street in 1972, featuring families photographed in their homes after the manner of a Bill Owens; and he continued to do so right up to the series Sign of the Times, done in the early 1990s, showing interiors of British middleclass homes. So it makes sense to link him after that with the architect-designer who had since the 1920s attempted to reconcile a certain modernity with the actual notion of ornament and decoration.
At Villa Bouilhet in Garches, in the suburbs of Paris, Martin Parr’s images are surprising for their restraint. They have none of the scathing irony ordinarily and sometimes over-systematically associated with his style. Instead, one is struck by an eye intent on capturing a peace and calm, a certain harmony of chromatic places and tones: of a space carved by the autumn light that penetrates through large windows. Fixing his gaze here and there, Parr subtly conjures up a total space in which Ponti’s neoclassicism is expressed unostentatiously, with restraint. In a multitude of details, from the celebrated wall lamps to the door handles.
But beyond that, Parr is, after the fashion of his earlier works, keen to depict a real scene of life, a private spot, steeped in human adventures, habits and tastes. A living space, in contrast to the stiffly cobwebby concept that might be conveyed by a place charged with history. Quentin Bajac
