NUREMBERG.- Neues Museum Nuremberg (NMN), in collaboration with The PhotoBookMuseum, Cologne, is presenting the first major retrospective of British photographer and Magnum member Martin Parr’s photobooks. Since the 1980s, Parr (1952-2025) has captured the absurdities of global consumer and leisure culture like no one else, translating them into a distinctive visual language. With an unflinching eye and a touch of humour, the photobooks featured in GRAND HOTEL PARR reveal a bizarre world of pomp and kitsch, four-star luxury and all-inclusive resorts, crossing social boundaries and national identities. The exhibition space itself is transformed into a British seaside hotel, complete with red carpeted floors and veneer-panelled walls, creating an immersive setting that invites visitors to explore the hotel’s facilities and browse Parr’s photobooks in the “Reading Lounge”.

A passionate collector and networker, Parr has played a key role in raising the profile of the photobook worldwide, particularly since the early 2000s. Through his efforts, the photobook has become a central medium in contemporary art photography. GRAND HOTEL PARR represents the first monographic retrospective of a photographer told entirely through his published photobooks, offering a new perspective on Parr’s work: seen through the medium of the photobook.

In the Neues Museum’s main exhibition hall, which has been transformed to look like a slightly outdated and ageing hotel, visitors get to explore nearly 250 of Parr's book projects—the first time they have been presented together on this scale. After passing the reception desk, visitors enter the “Reading Lounge,” where they can browse through Parr’s most famous photobooks, among them The Last Resort (1986), focused on the seaside town of New Brighton near Liverpool; Small World (1995), exploring global tourism; and Common Sense (1999), a vivid take on consumer excess.

Connected to the central reading lounge, with its grand piano and floral arrangement, are thematic rooms that correspond with the subjects of Parr's photobooks: the “Billiard Room,” “Dining Room,” and a “Fashion Boutique.” A terrace complete with artificial turf and a “Seaside View” is also part of the setting. The open exhibition parcours encourages visitors to stroll and linger, browse and discover, be it at the “Bar” or the “Souvenir Shop.” From Benidorm to Dubai, Manchester to Hong Kong, the pictures in this exhibition get up close with the viewer.