Boring Postcards

Martin Parr

Martin Parr's straightforwardly titled Boring Postcards contains 160 postcards of staggering dullness. Most of them belong to the 1960s and showcase the terrible architecture of that period: the motorway service stations, the civic centres, the low rise shopping centres, and high rise flats. In many cases the photos have seemingly been tinged an optimistic orange by the developer. In the case of an interior postcard of the Fortes Excelsior Motor Lodge nr Pontefract everything actually is orange. From the ceiling to the curtains to the carpet.

Martin Parr adds no commentary at all and, in any case, the cards' original captions speak for themselves. A few of my favourites:

"Aerial view of the service area on the M5"
"Mersey tunnel junction chamber, showing main and branch tunnel"
"Canteen, Stoke Mandeville Hospital"
"Rain Clouds, from Southend Pier"

Some of the postcards are more awful than others. The nuclear power stations and quarries are bearable because their function isn't at odds with the dismal view served up in postcard format. But the postcards depicting what are supposedly fun locations - caravan sites and shopping centres - are excruciating. One holiday camp actually looks like a WWII prison camp. I suppose, even with the best will in the world it's hard to make chalets look scenic. At the Corton Holiday Camp the photographer has solved the problem ... by simply photographing the perimeter hedge. But who would have thought a view across the Solway Firth in Scotland could be made so monotonous?

You have to wonder whether they were thought dull even by contemporary standards or whether there was once a time when a view of the traffic on the A6 was what you sent to loved ones back home. Especially bizarre is the postcard depicting the Tourist Information Centre in Fort William. Almost by definition a Tourist Information Centre cannot be the highlight of any town, surely?

A more artful reviewer could no doubt have conjured from these images an elegy to a more innocent age. Not me. It really is the most desperate pile of shit.