Life's a Beach by Martin Parr

For the first time in Australia comes an exhibition of seaside snaps from British Magnum photographer, Martin Parr, comprising 53 images. Parr has travelled the world – from China to Chile, Britain to Eastern Europe - capturing the people, places and peculiarities found at the beach and his stunning, colourful images are collected here in an exhibition organised by Aperture Foundation, New York. Now, the Australian Centre for Photography, in partnership with Waverley Council, brings Life's a Beach to Australia in a free pop-up exhibition at Bondi's iconic Pavilion Gallery.

In Life’s a Beach, one of Britain’s most beloved photographers takes us on a colour-saturated journey through a place loved by all, the seaside, with its general absurdities and local quirks. Martin Parr has been photographing this subject for many decades, documenting all aspects of the tradition, including close-ups of sunbathers, rambunctious swimmers caught mid-plunge, and the eternal sandy picnic underway. His international career, in fact, could well be traced to the launch of The Last Resort, a 1986 book depicting the seaside resort of New Brighton, near Liverpool.

What may be less known is that this obsession with the seaside has led Parr to photograph beaches across the world. This exhibition presents photos of beachgoers on far-flung shores, including in Argentina, Brazil, China, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Japan, the United States, Mexico, Thailand, and of course, the U.K.

Parr’s work has been celebrated for its distinctive documentary style, which lends his photographs a candid, unexpected quality... it also gives Parr ample room to flex his dry sense of humour and playful treatment of his subjects. In Life’s a Beach, Parr’s unwitting subjects are presented in their element, echoing the ‘let it all hang out’ ethos of the seaside, in evidence the world over.

Also accompanying the exhibition is Life is a Beach, a coffee-table book featuring works from the exhibition, produced by the Aperture Foundation.

• Organised by: Australian Centre for Photography
• Phone: 0293320555