Great Britain, Strange and Familiar

For the past forty-odd years, the photographer Martin Parr has trained his eye on all manner of British eccentricity: our Union Jack cupcakes and mock-antique gas fires, our atrocious seaside resorts and apocalyptic garden parties. Though Parr has crisscrossed the globe in search of lurid kitsch—recent projects include a journey negotiating the overcrowded beaches of Italy’s Amalfi Coast and an excursion to Hong Kong—his most distinctive work subjects the U.K. to provocative, forensic scrutiny: he’s a latter-day Hogarth with a Nikon and a medical ring flash. When London authorities allowed Parr to document their closed-door ceremonies and other functions as the culmination of his three-year tenure as the City of London’s photographer-in-residence, one wonders if they knew what they were in for.