Up and down Peachtree

Exhibition: June 9 until September 2, 2012 The High Museum, AtlantaThe exhibition and associated monograph consolidated Martin Parr’s first major Public Commission in America. Commissioned by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Parr worked on a sustained piece of work in Atlanta, the symbolic capital of the American south that contributed to its Picturing the South project—a series of major artist commissions that facilitated an engagement with the American South. The outcome of the museum’s commission offers a vivid, comedic and touching articulation of the diversity that lies in Atlanta. Parr researched and photographed in a diverse range of contexts and developed working strategies that drew on his formative use of colour and photographic macro detail as well as the social dynamics of the City (-Peachtree street runs through the heart of Atlanta’s central district). Parr covers a range of subject matter in his findings, which ranges from the high and low culture evident in the City. Parr’s work progresses the strategies explored in earlier work, extending the reach of his photographic language, achieving a restrained and layered depiction of everyday American excess that is more intimate than intrusive. The book is a meticulously edited and impeccably designed object in its own right. It is printed without text beyond the book’s title, a design that fore-grounds the use of photographic narrative and visual storytelling.As Parr produced the work in Atlanta, a documentary film Hot Spots: Martin Parr in the American South, was developed to coincide. Film maker Neal Broffman explored Parr’s process and engagement with subjects. The film features interviews with Susan Meiselas, Philip Gefter, Julian Cox and John Gossage. The film and the international edition of the book Up and Down Peachtree, published by the Italian publisher Contrasto, ran together with the exhibition beginning from June 9 until September 2, 2012 at the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia.