05/18/2026
Martin Parr’s exhibition at Jeu de Paume today, right now near Place de la Concorde. Our Paris ambassador, , was there, and here’s what she thinks about it.
Parr is not really the kind of photographer you understand from one image. One photo can feel funny, awkward, too bright, almost rude. But in series, it starts to hit differently.
He has spent decades watching how people eat, travel, shop, pose, rest, queue, consume, and behave in public.
Different countries, different decades, different clothes.
Same strange human patterns.
That’s what makes the exhibition work: you move through years of tourism, consumer culture, leisure, taste, objects, bodies, and small public rituals. Society changes. People somehow keep doing the same things in new packaging.
Not exactly a “beautiful photography” exhibition.
More like watching civilization get caught in its most ordinary, absurd moments.
Worth seeing if you’re in Paris before it closes on May 24. Tickets trom 14€.
