A box of smoke. While in France the public health operation of “Anti-Tobacco Month” attempts to reduce their number, in the pages of his latest book, published by the Rocket gallery, Martin Parr brings together smokers from his archives.
No smoking. Except in Martin Parr's lens, where the gesture is rather encouraged. “Smokers can be more interesting. I always liked the people I met in the back of the plane, even if I didn't smoke myself”explains the photographer in a recent interview. The photographer's fascination, perhaps unconscious, with cigarettes began a long time ago. And if his latest book, titled No Smokingnot without a touch of the irony that made it successfulis about tobacco, that was not necessarily his intention at the time of pressing the shutter button.
“Sometimes it's an important part of a photo, and sometimes it's just in the background. It's not like all the photos I took were of people smoking. It wasn't even something I was aware of until Sid came up with the idea.”. Sid is Sid Stephenson, the son of Jonathan Stephenson, who founded the Rocket gallery in London and who is publishing this new book. Strolling through archive images by Martin Parr, this detail struck him. He chose 73, on which small sticks of paper with a combustion that is as harmful as it is photogenic appear.
Martin Parr, the convulsive anthropologist
Over the course of a hundred pages, cigarettes hide behind ears, slip between the fingers of a wrinkled hand, die in a urinal, serve as a social link on a sidewalk, accompany a game of cards. THE 250 copies of the book, presented by the Rocket gallery at Paris Photo last week, were sold immediately. Out of stock, it should be reprinted soon. All photos were captured between 1970 and 2019, in this esprit documenter of the mass that humans form clean to the eye of Martin Parr. As Fashion Faux Parr last year, No Smoking allows us to consider other Books based on the archives, the number of images of which amounts to more than fifty thousand. “I've been photographing non-stop for 55 years, so if I wanted to do a book about dogs or cats, I could do it tomorrow, no problem. Ask me what you want, I have it.”
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