Parr photographs people in locations, often in a candid manner and in garish, bold colour. Despite the excessive brightness of the photos, there is something enticing about them, especially when they are presented in bulk.
I recently took a trip to Wakefield, to visit The Yorkshire Sculpture Park and The Hepworth Gallery. In looking at figures in the landscape, I had wanted to visit the sculpture park as a call to my location visits and I then discovered that The Hepworth was a short drive away. I had been told about Martin Parr's The Rhubarb Triangle, a photo series exploring, quite simply, the rhubarb industry. I was certainly intrigued by the absurdity of the idea, who would think of visiting a rhubarb factory in order to make a work?
The photos I had seen online were also appealing so I made the visit to the gallery.
[My photos taken from the exhibition]
I gathered photos of my own of the exhibition and also purchased postcards of the exhibition. It was definitely interesting and beneficial to go and visit the exhibition. Just seeing the ordering and curation itself was worth the trip. The use of colour throughout the exhibition was so significant: the hints of red all the way through, becoming more and more pronounced, from the red stalks in an industry setting, to the red everywhere curtesy of Parr's photographs of the festivals.
The thing that became relevant about this project was the idea of photographing within an industry environment, capturing people in their every day occupation. I think something as mundane as a rhubarb factory and industry is so peculiar that it helps add to the appeal of the series. This also adds relevance to my project, for it looks the figures in the space, and here it is certainly an unconventional space, but it works.
No comments:
Post a Comment