As I sat in the airport in New York, waiting for my overnight flight to Paris last week, I silently wrestled with the same question that nags at me each year when I visit Paris Photo – how can I give readers from across the globe an insightful sense of the fair, and the state of the world of photography as seen there, when there are so many possible ways to cut a meaningful slice through the several hundred booths in the Grand Palais? Having tried half a dozen or more approaches over the years (one work from every booth, 100 total highlights, only women photographers, curated thematic collections etc.), I toyed with the idea of opting for something even more forward looking this year. What if I intentionally limited myself to 21st century photography – that is, looking for only “contemporary” images made between 2000 and the present?
Cutting away all of the “vintage” and “classic” photographs, from both the 19th and 20th centuries, would boldly strip the fair down to how it collectively sees the present tense of the medium; with one stroke, it might immediately remove a meaningful chunk what’s typically on view at the fair. In the remaining subset, there would many fewer agreed upon masters, almost no established canon of what is considered central or important, and very little regurgitation of famous images we’ve all seen before, unless they were made relatively recently and have already developed their own momentum. Such an approach might even offer an indirect look forward, with a potential emphasis on the newcomers, the ambitious, the exciting, the risk taking, and the not-as-well-known, hopefully from a wide sweep of geographies. Shaping that mass of recent work into a coherent cross section might be challenging, but it also might provide a useful time-based sampler of this specific moment in photography. Additionally, choosing works from the same general time period would create a much richer sense of mutual context, in that the works would reference each other with more resonance than those in a broader “favorites”-style edit.
Of course, such a choice would also mean leaving out many established galleries who specialize in vintage rarities, skipping many worthy rediscoveries and unearthed treasures, avoiding thoughtful solo presentations of vintage work, and missing out on some of the market nuances of how the work of key photographers is being re-positioned (and priced) in today’s photo world. But perhaps I could reasonably leave those questions and observations for another time, in favor of a sweeping look at the present. And so, I set off to leave the comforts of the past behind, and to take the pulse of 21st century photography at this year’s fair.
While the fair essentially begins with a massive vintage presentation across from the central entrance, in the form of an appropriately gargantuan wall of prints from August Sander’s “People of the 20th Century” at Julian Sander’s booth (image above), there wasn’t as much vintage material sprinkled throughout the fair as I expected or remembered (and far fewer vintage only booth presentations this year). With the recent renovations to the Grand Palais making room for more gallery booths on the main floor and the addition of the Emergence, Voices, and Digital sections (with the Books/Editions moved upstairs), at roughly 240 booths, the fair was undeniably much fuller with contemporary work than ever before, making the scale of the sifting and sorting process I had embarked on that much larger. And while there are always a few notable holdouts and missing big name galleries, it was clear that this year’s Paris Photo firmly (and muscularly) re-established itself as the premier photography fair on the worldwide calendar.
What you’ll find in the slideshow below, and in the ones that will follow in the coming days (in six posts), are my edited selections, unexpected finds, and new discoveries (more than of 120 individual works in total) within the “contemporary” playing field, starting with the booths on the far left of the Grand Palais (as seen from the main central entrance). As usual, each photograph (or group of photographs) is annotated with the linked gallery name, the artist’s name, some discussion of the work itself, and the price (where available, most often in Euros without VAT).
Subsequent parts of this report will cover different physical sections of the fair, with the booths found in the middle left of the main floor up next.
Perfectly judged approach and a terrific first batch.
Thank you.