Working Men's Clubs Through The Eyes of Martin Parr

Following Aesthetica’s feature on Martin Parr’s Parrworld at BALTIC last year, we take a look at his new show Working Men’s Clubs.

Martin Parr’s inimitable style of candid photography returns in the valleys of South Wales as his new show opens next week at the Earlswood Working Men’s Club in Cardiff. Originally being from the South Wales Valleys myself, this exhibition instantly appeals to me. My first thought was that I was glad such an honest, frank photographer was undertaking the task of documenting the spirit of these valley communities. Parr aims to capture for posterity the sense of society and place that is encapsulated in Working Men’s Clubs – a tradition that seems to be dying out in contemporary society. Over the past six months, he has visited many of the Welsh clubs, compiling his anthology of collective identity, social gatherings and civic behaviour. You get the feeling that instead of holding his subjects up in a mocking way, Parr is joining with them and celebrating a sense of community and the coming-together of generations through shared experience;


“It’s the dancing that I really like. Regardless of age, when those familiar numbers are played, up we all get, shaking our bodies and waving our arms, singing along. Our mutual pop history is part of our DNA. Often bands bring their own lighting to dramatise the stage show. With whirling colours and flashing lights, the heady combination of four generations dancing together was, for me, the highlight of this project.”
- Martin Parr

The images depict those in their 40s through to those in their 80s moving in the same spaces, dancing and playing bingo. There is a nostalgic feeling that something is lost in the spaces we socialise in more widely now which are synonymous with anonymity and newness, instead of tradition, routine and the local community.



The venue itself is an important aspect in the bringing together of like-minded individuals from the community, giving them a space for social collaboration. This feeling of the significance of space is emphasised in the way this exhibition is being housed at one of the clubs, allowing the viewer to experience the life and surroundings in a truly apt context. Parr, who wanted to embrace the unconventional gallery space to complement the body of project, chose Earlswood Working Men’s Club as a venue. The presence of the Welsh national flag throughout the series illustrates not only the importance of their Club, but of their city, environment and a wider connection.

The project is a collaboration between Safle in Cardiff and the University of Wales, Newport and is one of four photography commissions from ‘Imaging the City’, conceived by Russell Roberts and Emma Price. The other artists involved in this project include Paul Shambroom, Sarah Pickering and Dan Holdsworth, all aiming to reflect the changing urban landscape and iconography of Cardiff as a city.



"Parr has captured the essence of the Working Men’s Clubs as cultural institutions in delivering the ‘Saturday night out’. Parr, through his series of colour photographs of club life with its large dance floors, affordable beer and live music, has revealed some of the distinctive qualities of the eclectic evenings of entertainment and unabashed enjoyment"
- Emma Price (Co-Curator of the project)

Although these images might depict a Saturday night out a world away from what you usually expect, they encapsulate the importance of a sense of belonging, community and enjoyment that will one day be lost forever. If you let yourself go, you might just enjoy it.

Martin Parr Working Men’s Clubs is at Earlswood Working Men’s Club from Thursday 11 February 2010 – 14 March 2010. For more info please visit www.safle.com

Image Credits: All Images (c) Martin Parr. Used with Kind Permission.

Aesthetica's New Issue: Issue 33 Out This Week

This is the week that we launch our latest issue of Aesthetica Magazine! Following our recently expanded UK and international distribution, we have introduced a fresh new look for Issue 33. This edition has a sleek, updated design and features expanded content focusing on innovative and contemporary subjects. Exploring the creative zeitgeist, Aesthetica's editorial is engaging and offers new perspectives on contemporary arts, looking at the arts in relation to the social, political and economic.

Issue 33 engages with current debate and looks how the boundaries in arts and design are forever changing. Much of this issue is about ingenuity, innovation and pushing the artistic boundaries – how far and precisely where can they go? Presenting a survey of these ideas, this issue drives the debate forward. In art, opening at Liberty is OH! YOU PRETTY THING, which showcases the new generation of British fashion photographers and explores the ideas behind their work. We’re also looking at artists’ wallpaper and defining our interior spaces with a new exhibition Walls Are Talking opening at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. Peter Kardia curates From Floor to Sky; a major exhibition on British sculpture and Bani Abidi opens her new work Karachi Series, at Green Cardamom, exploring the personal narratives of identity.

In film, we have a chat with Martin Koolhoven about his new film Winter in Wartime, looking at love, loss and deception at the close of the Second World War and Part Two of our How to Be an Animator series with The Brothers McLeod. To download Part One of our How to be an Animator series click here. In addition to this, Kathryn Williams tells us about her new album and we take an in-depth look at Sound Art and its amorphous definitions. There’s a preview of Danza Contemporanea de Cuba’s world premiere at eight venues this winter and, to conclude, a discussion with Ireland’s rising star, Paul Murray, about his new book Skippy Dies. The issue also features an extract from Aifric Campbell’s new book, The Loss Adjustor, and a Q&A with the director/producer, Simon Curtis.

With all the best exhibitions, productions, music and new releases of the coming months, Aesthetica Magazine celebrates innovation and ingenuity. This is an extremely exciting issue: open up, dive in and enjoy.

Issue 33 will be available to buy from WH Smiths, your local newsagent, gallery or bookstore or online at the Aesthetica web site. To find your nearest stockist click here or to download the issue or order a hardcopy directly from the website click here.

Become a follower of Aesthetica on Twitter, interact with us on Facebook or check out our MySpace page.

Aesthetica Short Film Competition: Encouraging and promoting artists’ film

A prominent element of our recently launched Short Film Competition is the promotion of inspirational and innovative work. We at Aesthetica want to drive the genre of short film forward, and as part of this objective we hope to encourage submissions from a range of genres by both experienced and aspiring filmmakers.

One category of film we are excited to encounter is artist’s film, which has gained heightened recognition in Britain over the last decade. The use of film and video by artists has made a significant impression in the world of expanded cinema, impacting upon experimental film and wider art practices.



Soho Shorts Film Festival, a partner of the Aesthetica Short Film Competition, has a history of exhibiting and supporting artist’s film. Sandra Hebron, member of the Soho Shorts judging panel, is the Head of Festivals at the British Film Institute and Artistic Director of the Times BFI London Film Festival. Sandra has worked in independent film exhibition for more than 15years and is currently the Chairperson of Lux, a London based organisation that specialises in the distribution of artists’ film and video:

“LUX exists to provide access to, and develop audiences for, artists' moving image work; to provide professional development support for artists working with the moving image; and to contribute to and develop discourse around practice.”

Lux was founded in 2002 and is currently the only organisation of its kind in the UK. The company represents the UK’s only significant collection of artists’ film and video and is also the largest distributor of such work in Europe, representing around 4500 works by artists from the 1920s to the present day. The key activities of the company are that of distribution, exhibition and publishing, alongside commissioning new art works and research support for curators and academics.



The organisation is particularly concerned with visual arts-based moving image, including experimental film, video art, installation art, performance art, personal documentary, essay films and animation. By visiting the Lux website, users can access the Screening Room, which houses an archive of artists’ film to view online for free.

In the US, British street artist Banksy will be premiering his first film at the Sundance Film Festival. It was announced yesterday that his work, Exit through the Gift Shop, will be screened for the first time on the 24th January. Over the last few days it has been reported that perplexing street art has appeared on buildings throughout Utah, home town of the Sundance Film Festival.

The film portrays a Los Angeles-based French filmmaker who documents the mysterious world of street art in Europe and the US. Referred to as a part personal journey and part expose of the art world, the film is an amalgamation of reality and fiction and includes footage of underground artists such as Shepard Fairey, with actor Rhys Ifans providing the narrative. Having never been officially photographed, the famously secretive artist remains anonymous, supposedly even to the agent who promoted the film at the festival.

To view a trailer of the film click here.

For those interested in street art a free downloadable pdf of Street Scene: urban art & graffiti artists from issue 15 can be downloaded by clicking here.

Through the Aesthetica Short Film Competition we would like to champion films from a variety of creators and look forward to those entries from artists and experimental film producers. We hope to have an example of visual artists’ film and video work in the semi-finals, so spread the word or get creating!

The competition offers the winner and runners-up a fantastic prize package, which will bring your films to a wider audience. The deadline for submissions is 30 April 2010. All winners will be notified by 31 May 2010 and the DVD will be released 1 August 2010.