It is an exhibition about Dubai, for Dubai. However, the city you see in the photographs at Martin Parr: Dubai is quite different from the one you usually see in local newspapers and magazines.
Through his images, Martin Parr, the well-known British photojournalist, presents a candid, cynical, incisive and indulgent look at Dubai’s crème de la crème as they strut their stuff at the city’s most flamboyant events , the Dubai World Cup and the Cartier Polo World Cup.
Parr is a distinguished documentary photographer and a leading member of the noted Magnum agency.
His work focuses on people, places and contemporary social transactions. He travelled to Dubai specially to attend this year’s Dubai World Cup and Cartier Polo World Cup and took hundreds of pictures at these events.
Within 48 hours of shooting them, he made digital prints for this exhibition at the Third Line gallery. The photos will be sold in limited editions of five and ten.
Parr’s images do depict Dubai’s socialites but these are not your typical photographs of people in designer clothes and hats smiling into the camera.
Instead, the artist looks beyond the obvious to reveal different mindsets and nuances of social interactions in this multicultural city. You see Westerners enjoying beer and champagne, Indians chatting with friends, Sudanese families enjoying a picnic and an Arab couple with their baby in a pram.
More than the people, Parr focuses on the symbols of their wealth. There are close-up shots of exclusive brands of watches, jewellery and bags on manicured hands, impractical but fabulous high-heeled shoes at the races, an amazing variety of designer sunglasses, expensive cigars and, of course, just so many people talking on mobile phones.
Parr has captured the essence of this fast-growing city and its “work hard and party hard” culture. His candid photographs have many stories to tell about every strata of society, including the people of different nationalities living in Dubai.
Wealth in focus
“This exhibition is about the people of Dubai, how much money they have and how they flaunt it. These images are part of an ongoing project I am exploring, on luxury, which is an investigation into how the wealthy in Europe and the emerging economies of the Middle East, China and India spend their money,” Parr says.
“Traditionally, humanistic photographers have taken pictures of war, famine and poverty. But I am happy to reverse this [trend] and show the new wealth of the world because I believe that wealth is as important a social issue as poverty. With new burgeoning economies, more and more people are becoming wealthy and that is going to cause social problems. So this project is as much about the politics of wealth as it is about recording it,” he says.
Parr’s strategy is simple. He wants to show things as he finds them, not as how people want to depict them.
“I just wander around and capture moments that reveal themselves rather than setting up society pages-type of shots. I look for human traits and foibles and just the everyday things that people do,” he says.
“The rich in Dubai are no different from affluent people anywhere else in the world. But what is unique and interesting here is the mix of Arabs, Westerners, Indians and other Asians working together with the common goal of the country’s and their own economic growth.
At the Dubai World Cup, it was interesting to see the different agendas of the various groups in this melting pot of cultures. The Westerners just wanted to get drunk, the Arabs concentrated on the horses, the Sudanese made it a day out for the whole family — yet they all came together to enjoy the event in their own way,” he adds.
Parr had his first encounter with wealthy Dubai residents last year at the Gulf Art Fair. “I was interested to attend because it was the first art fair in the region. And after rich people have bought all the cars, houses, clothes and jewellery they need, the only thing left to buy and show off is art. And that is what I saw at the VIP launch of the fair,” he says.
Some of the photos he took at the art fair and the Dubai World Cup last year are also part of the exhibition. These include the photograph of a visitor who is looking at a painting that matches the shirt he is wearing.
“I found it interesting that besides the usual European and American buyers, there were also wealthy Arabs, Indians and other Asians at the art fair. This heady mix was wonderful to photograph.
It was a truly international event and the people’s clothes and demeanour was very bling. Hence, I decided to return to further explore Dubai and the city’s glitterati, its bling and love for consumer culture. I love the melting pot of Dubai and an event like the Dubai World Cup is probably one of the most democratically attended events in the world,” Parr says.
“But Dubai’s image of itself is so full of propaganda and untruths. All I am doing through my photographs is showing it as it really is rather than how people think it should be. And that is the role of photography in society,” he says.
Martin Parr: Dubai is on at The Third Line gallery, Al Quoz, until April 14.
