When British photographer Martin Parr was a child, he collected stamps, rocks, bus tickets. Later, he moved on to Soviet propaganda, Margaret Thatcher memorabilia, Spice Girls candy bars, and kept going. "Parrworld," currently on view at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris, sprawls over two floors, and features the artist's latest work as well as various objects and photographs that he has been collecting for decades.

The show feels like a trip into the home of a high-end packrat: The ground floor features a display of  kitschy objects of all sorts that Parr has obsessively collected throughout his life: a collection of Saddam Hussein-themed fake gold watches, Thatcher as-pinup mugs, Obama flip-flops, and, the biggest package of potato chips ever made. These objects are displayed in vitrines like curiosities; next door is a room filled with Parr's personal collection of photographs, with works by the likes of William Eggleston and Graham Smith. Juxtaposed with Parr's multitude of random objects, the work of these "social" photographers, featuring lower-middle class towns looks, moves the latters' works toward a critique of mass consumption. The second floor is dedicated to the artist's most recent photographic works, produced from holiday snapshots, and for his work on British provincial towns featured in London newspaper The Guardian. "My own photography is a form of collecting too," Parr explains, "I just go out and try to make sense of the world around me."

The rooms upstairs have themes: One is called "Luxury" and  depicts grotesque, dreary scenes of should-be upper crust individuals and groups, at Dubai art fairs, Moscow Fashion week, charities in Hollywood. Parr shows no mercy in these portraits: stomach rolls and sweat-patches under couture dresses, plaster-like makeup dripping off aging botoxed faces and gigantic pastel, cake-like hats. Through these sordid representations, the artist deplores pre-recession over-consumption, he explained. "Traditionally photographers poverty as a matter of human concern. I photograph wealth," he says, "it's an epitaph of a world that has just finished, of excessive growth, showing off and ostentatious looks."


Parrworld is on view through September 27. Musée Jeu de Palme Concorde is located at 1, place de la Concorde, Paris.