Langweilige Postkarten

Magnum photographer Martin Parr is a key figure in the worlds of photography and contemporary art. He has been an avid postcard collector for twenty years and in Langweilige Postkarten he presents the pride of his 'boring' collection: 160 postcards from Germany that take you on a daringly dull tour of its autobahns, airports, hotels, factories, shops, border posts, tower blocks and new towns.Presented without commentary or introduction of any kind, and with the original captions, the postcards are allowed to speak for themselves. They were all made before German reunification and provide fascinating and hilarious insights into German social and architectural values between the 1950s and 1980s. The two nations' special relationship with concrete and the functional modernist block is nostalgically and repetitiously celebrated in postcard after postcard, and the volume provides a revealing context for consideration of the work of contemporary German art and landscape photographers.

The work of Martin Parr bridges the divide between art and documentary photography. His studies of the idiosyncrasies of mass culture and consumerism around the world, his innovative imagery and his prolific output have placed him firmly at the forefront of contemporary art. A member of the international photo agency Magnum, Parr is an avid collector of books and a world authority on the photobook.