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April 3, 2008 9:56 am
It’s hard to avoid having a conflicted crush on Dubai. The city’s energy and opulence and its glittering, shiny, contagious plastic allure are appealing, but also dramatically off-set by poverty, ecological negligence, and blistering heat—not to mention a frustrating lack of taxis. All of which makes it the perfect muse for Martin Parr’s distinctly critical eye. Parr’s documentary-style images of his native New Brighton defined British photography in the eighties, and his searingly satirical shots of overweight English tourists sunning, shopping, and stuffing their ruddy faces were both funny and tragic. Parr’s new series on Dubai opens this week at The Third Line, one of the Middle East’s most stimulating contemporary art galleries. It highlights the unnerving juxtapositions between Dubai’s über-rich and its impoverished classes, the contrasts between the ancient desert and the brand-new buildings, and sparklingly style versus concrete scenery. As he did with his work in the U.K., Parr demonstrates that Dubai’s truths are in its details.
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