This year marks the bicentenary of the oldest surviving photography: Nicêphore Niépce’s View from the Window at Le Gras, captured around 1826-1827. At the centre of the festivities is Paris Photo – the world’s largest art fair dedicated to photography and image-based art. It returns to the city’s Grand Palais for its 29th edition, where 246 exhibitors survey 200 years of the medium, from historical works to technological innovation. Split across five sectors, it offers an international panorama of the medium, from historical works to the most recent practices. Anna Planas, artistic director of Paris Photo, says: “Photography has undergone major changes since Paris Photo was established – visually, technically, aesthetically and conceptually. These transformation have created a fertile and exciting artistic landscape for the medium, which will continue to evolve, expand its place within the market and, in a sense, gain greater recognition.”
In the Main sector, several galleries specialising in vintage prints highlight photography’s origin story. New York-based Hans P. Kraus Jr., for example, presents pictures using the oldest processes by Anna Atkins, Girault de Prangey, Louis Daguerre and William Henry Fox Talbot. Christophe Gaillard presents a solo show by Isabelle le Minh, whose work explores the history, forms and limits of the medium, whilst Binome Gallery shows a selection of works that test the medium’s materiality. Fast forward to the present-day and there are solo presentations of contemporary names including Anastasia Samoylova, Elina Brotherus, Julie Cockburn and Nadine Ijewere. Paris Photo also unveils a monumental, 36-metre-long retrospective installation dedicated to Thomas Ruff, considered as “a master of edited and reimagined images.”
Elsewhere in the fair is Voices, a section which explores the theme of “disappearance” in relation to image-making in the computer age. Section curator Zasha Colah says: “Conceived, among other reasons, as a tool to preserve what would otherwise vanish, photography is now being celebrated at a moment when its own traditional form appears increasingly unstable, transformed and challenged by processes that are altering its nature and status.” This paradox sits at the heart of Voices. Plus, the Digital and Emergence sections bring new talent to the fore, from hyperreal, painterly imagery by Summer Wagner to powerful art from Randa Mirza, who combines photography, poetry and calligraphy to evoke the destruction of war in Lebanon.
At this landmark moment, as we look back at two centuries of the camera, Paris Photo once again becomes an international meeting place for the medium. The range of work on display is truly remarkable, reminding audiences both how photography has shaped our current moment and the potential it has for evolution.
Paris Photo runs at Grand Palais, Paris from 11 – 15 November: parisphoto.com
Words: Emma Jacob
Image Credits:
1. Tania Franco Klein, Man, Car Window (From Versace ss26), 2026, ROSEGALLERY.
2. Tania Franco Klein, Green Tub, Raven (From Versace ss26), 2026, ROSEGALLERY.
3. Vlatka Horvat, Unhinged (Lisbon) 02, 2010, England & Co.
4. Tania Franco Klein, Red Shoes, Telephone (From Versace ss26), 2026, ROSEGALLERY.
