Martin Parr’s witty portrayal of British domestic life in the 1990s opens at Beetles & Huxley

A woma sitting on a brown three-seater sofa against a flowery wall paper

'When I looked at the wallpaper and the wallpaper looked at me we instantly fell in love', 1991.

(Image credit: © Martin Parr/Magnum. Courtesy of Rocket Gallery)

last updated 9 October 2022

Signs of the Times, a five-part series first broadcast on BBC2 in 1992, might be one of the most important British TV shows of all time. Subtitled 'portrait of a nation's taste', the documentaries took gimlet-eyed tours of 50 very different British homes with commentary from the people who made them.

As the name suggests, the show was detached and academic in its conviction that taste and taste systems were worthy of serious consideration at a time when cultural studies and semiotics were the favoured critical martial arts. But it was also smart, artfully shot and funny - if at times uncomfortable viewing, the camera holding its gaze during long, strange silences. It also proved to other programme-makers that the Great British public could be more than quiz-show fodder. Reality TV was not long in arriving.

Nick Barker, the director of Signs of the Times, asked photographer Martin Parr to take pictures to accompany the show, which were used in adverts and later collected in a book. Parr had already proven himself a ruthless documentarian of class and taste with 'The Last Resort' and 'The Cost of Living', and his influence on Baker is clear. For the first time, the pictures have been given their own show, put together by Beetles & Huxley in association with the Rocket Gallery.

Parr's shots make clear that these films were as much about relationships between people and their objects as the people they share space with - how much interior decor becomes an escalating, proxy war. Of course there is pathos and snobbery skewered - the fabulous titles are direct quotes from subjects and include 'We keep buying things thinking 'That'll look better' and it just doesn't' and 'Each to their own but I think this is going to be one of the best - if not the best - house on the estate'. As always with Parr there is also just enough understanding that, when it comes to class, taste and history, the battle to be on the right side can render us all ridiculous.

View of the lounge and dining setting divided by a red curtain in the middle. Lounge has white sofa with red cushions and a brown coffee table in the middle with a white place mat. — 'It's not stuff that run-of-the-mill people would have in their homes', 1991.

A peach coloured towel rolled up and stored in a decorative ceramic bowl. placed inbetween a mirror and a plant photrographed against a tiled brown wall — 'The house came with everything right down to the bars of soap', 1991.

2 women in a red dress facing opposite directions in a room with wide windows, white walls , red cushion and red carpets — 'I don’t think it’s anything particularly forced on Deborah. We’ve just always enjoyed the same sort of things', 1991.

A woman sitting on a striped blue and white sofa holding a wooden pig — 'Marie-Louise's pig irritates me intensely. I can't say why, but it just irritates me intensely', 1991.

Brown bedside cabinet with red table lamp and a telphone photographed against a wall with patterned wall paper. — 'Woodworm does generate through the furniture, and obviously if you're putting new things into your home the last thing you want is an invitation to worms', 1991.

A curtain made of orange satin handing off the window in a room with yellow walls — 'I get such pleasure from them every day when I sit in the bath', 1991.

A living/Dining setting with white walls, white ceiling and grey carpets. A woman sitting on a green chair by the base of the white stairs. A man in grey 3 piece suit standing by the brown and white dining set which is next to the french glass doors — 'Each to their own but I think this is going to be one of the best - if not the best - houses on the estate', 1991.

A brown three seater sofa with a white cloth on the headrest, 3 colourful cushions (Green, Red and Yellow), photographed against a white wall with framed wall art and black flowery carpet — 'We keep buying things thinking ‘that’ll look better’ and it just doesn’t', 1991.

A kitchen with 2 framed wall art on a white wall. A parrot sittin on the head of a chair in the dining area. A woman sitting at the dining table on a chair with a man standing closeby. Flowes in a white vase in the middle of the brown dining table with table mats laid — 'We thought we could make it look sort of bistro-y looking in the kitchen and then carry it through to the lounge', 1991.

A dark grey hard, cowboy on a horse , brown bowl and vased flower on a grey surface with a wall art above on a wall — 'To come home in the evenings to find the kids have carried out their own form of anarchy is just about the last thing I can face', 1991.

One socket with 2 switches, boxed in a flowery square design — 'We wanted a cottagey stately home kind of feel', 1991.

ADDRESS

Beetles & Huxley
3-5 Swallow Street
London W1B 4DE

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