With projects like his anthologies of boring postcards and a devastating tribute to New Brighton (The Last Resort), photographer Martin Parr long ago established a reputation as a chronicler of downbeat Britain.
Over the last four years he has been training a beady eye on the Black Country, building up a huge archive not only of photographs 鈥 no fewer than 400 selected prints have been presented to each of the local authorities in Walsall, Wolverhampton and Sandwell 颅鈥 but also of documentary films recording workplaces, flower shows and pensioners鈥 expeditions to the seaside.
The degree of forensic detail to be found in his exhibition, Black Country Stories at the , recalls the faintly sinister work of the 1930s organisation Mass Observation, with its obsessive interest in working class tastes in leisure and home decor.
Here, organised in thematic groups and depicted in gaudy colour (of which Parr was a pioneer in British photojournalism) are the people, their workplaces, leisure pursuits, places of worship and cultural trappings.
At a time when we have never been more self颅 conscious about issues of English identity, it seems an apt time to take stock of one area of England which Churchill might justly have called a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, and Chamberlain (despite having grown up a few miles away) a far颅away country of which we know nothing.
Though physically attached to would颅 be upwardly 颅mobile Birmingham, the Black Country has a reputation for being inward颅 looking and unambitious.
聽This is currently a hot topic, given the push towards the creation of a Greater Birmingham to take advantage of anticipated devolution of political power to the regions.
But of course nowhere in this shrinking world is immune to global changes, and it is the push 颅and颅 pull between the old Black Country and the forces of change which Parr captures in this body of work.
Consider, for example, the elderly black couple 颅鈥 probably 1950s 颅vintage immigrants, with their environmentally 颅friendly shopping bags.
A wall devoted to shop signs ranges from the bluntly practical 鈥淲atch Your Purse鈥 to the enigmatic 鈥淲e Are Still Collecting Bras for Africa鈥. You can still get dripping on toast but it costs 45p 颅鈥 that鈥檚 nine shillings in old money.
You can get Spam, too, but this tin is in a Wolverhampton food bank and it comes with a sticky label saying 鈥淲ith love from Jesus Christ鈥.
The section on religion includes a Polish service at St Michael鈥檚 Catholic church in West Bromwich, as well as the now long 颅familiar mosques and Sikh temples.
Wolves supporters still celebrate a goal at Molineux, but more exotic pursuits like kick-boxing have also joined the sporting mix.
Perhaps most surprising is that some traditional Black Country occupations survive seemingly untouched 颅鈥 most notably in the portraits of workers at Griffin Woodhouse Ltd Chain Makers in Cradley Heath.
There is a direct link here with The Making of Mordor, another exhibition reflecting on the Black Country, currently showing at
Here the renowned Birmingham颅 born photographer Brian Griffin has two very large portraits of chain颅makers 颅although, posed as they are with Griffin鈥檚 trademark artifice, you might initially mistake them for pop stars in fancy dress.
The nominal idea of The Making of Mordor is to look at the Black Country through the prism of Mordor, the dark, blasted region of J R R Tolkien鈥檚 Lord of the Rings which it is generally assumed to have inspired.
But the idea is not logically carried through. Perhaps the forest of locally颅 sourced saplings through which visitors enter the exhibition 颅鈥 an installation by the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, made famous in Britain by his 2003 Weather Project at Tate Modern, represents the primordial forest before the onslaught of industry.
But once through it, the case of handwritten letters and watercolours by Tolkien seems curiously beside the point though, Birmingham visitors will be interested in the view of Kings Norton from the Lickeys.
There are representative works by the two most notable artists associated with the Black Country鈥檚 early 20th century industrial landscape 鈥 the local Whistlerian painter Edwin Butler Bayliss and the passer颅by Edward Wadsworth.
Having trained as an engineer in Germany before he became a contemporary of CRW Nevinson and David Bomberg at the Slade School, Wadsworth was a member of the Vorticist movement and later drew on this pioneering abstract style to design so颅 called 鈥渄azzle ships鈥 颅 a kind of avant颅garde naval camouflage intended to confuse U颅 boats.
Travelling between Liverpool and London by train while engaged on this work, his attention was taken by the dramatic appearance of the Black Country, which he captured in an extensive series of semi-颅abstract geometric prints in 1919.
Wadsworth鈥檚 work is fairly well known. The real discovery in this show is two very large, very colourful Art Deco posters depicting Black Country industry designed by Clive Arthur
Gardiner 鈥 a name completely new to me 颅鈥 in 1927. No wonder one of them has been used to advertise the exhibition outside the gallery.
Martin Parr : Black Country Stories is at the New Art Gallery Walsall until January 11 (Tue颅-Sat 10am-颅5pm, Sun 11am-颅4pm, admission free); The Making of Mordor is at Wolverhampton Art Gallery until January 17 (Mon-颅Sat 10am-颅5pm, admission free).
