A retrospective of Martin Parr, 'a master of contemporary photography,' is running at the Seoul Museum of Photography, Kyunghyang Shinmun reported. A Magnum photographer, Parr has documented everyday consumer society in saturated color and close-up.

His best-known work takes utterly ordinary subjects: British seaside resorts, mass tourism, food on a table. Parr himself has said, 'there is something interesting in the boring.'

Mockery or affection

Parr's pictures have long drawn argument. Early on, critics said he caricatured working-class holidays; his Magnum membership was opposed. Defenders reply that declining to flatter a subject is not contempt, and that Parr looks at everyone—including himself—the same way.

He has indeed made a self-portrait series, visiting tourist photo studios worldwide and posing before crude painted backdrops. Turning the camera on himself is both his defense and the work's consistency.

Why look again in Seoul

Landscapes of mass tourism and consumption are now everywhere. What Parr found on a British beach in the 1980s exists today at Incheon's Wolmido, Taipei's Tamsui, Shanghai's Bund. That is why the photographs read as a record of an era rather than a joke about one nationality.

The show keeps the high saturation and tight framing of his color prints. Viewers used to consuming photography as 'pretty' may find it uncomfortable—and that discomfort is close to the point.