Paris Picture returns to the Grand Palais this week for its twenty eighth version (till 16 November), bringing collectively 220 exhibitors, together with 178 galleries and 42 publishers from 33 international locations.
The honest opens at a second of change and uncertainty for the pictures sector: 81,000 guests attended the earlier version in 2024, but sellers report slower acquisitions on the high of the market, elevated manufacturing prices and lowered risk-taking amongst collectors.
But, even amid a pronounced market contraction, the honest’s broad geographic unfold and plenty of notable shows supplied a measure of confidence within the quotidian power of the medium.
Florence Bourgeois, the honest’s director, emphasises that Paris Picture doesn’t function round rigidly fastened curatorial themes, preferring as an alternative to current a large survey of the medium. This yr, throughout the 37 solo cubicles devoted to a single artist, sure threads have been potential to discern: a pronounced resurgence of Japanese galleries, the visibility of Latin American archives and modern practices and the presence of latest our bodies of labor by each established figures—Sally Mann amongst them—and youthful French and British photographers reminiscent of Marine Lanier and Jack Davison. Notably, ladies artists now account for 39% of practitioners exhibited, up from 20% in 2018.
Claudia Andujar, Sem título—da série Rua Direita (1970)
Courtesy of artist & Galeria Vermelho
Probably the most tangible shifts was the return of Tokyo-based galleries, 9 of which travelled to Paris this yr. Their absence since 2019 had been felt throughout the honest, with journey prices and logistics having saved many away. Among the many strongest of those shows was MEM, which exhibited prints from August 6 Hiroshima Day, a collective student-photography undertaking carried out between 1968 and 1971 by members of the All-Japan Pupil Images Affiliation (Zen-Nichi). The gallery’s co-director Mizuho Takahashi says that whereas Zen-Nichi had been intently linked to scholar protest pictures within the Nineteen Sixties, its de facto chief, the critic Tatsuo Fukushima, inspired contributors to broaden their focus: “He informed college students that protest was not the one subject in Japan—we had environmental air pollution, we had Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and we would have liked to take a look at these histories too.” Most of the college students, raised in Tokyo, travelled repeatedly to Hiroshima to grasp a actuality they knew solely from textbooks and the media. Their pictures—starting from portraits and road scenes to photographs of slum districts and rephotographed archival materials—mix documentary impulses with private inquiry. As Takahashi put it: “They went to find what was actually taking place there, and what the actual points in Japan have been on the time.”
Latin American galleries made a number of the honest’s strongest impressions, reflecting the presence of 4 South American galleries in the primary sector. Shows from Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Santiago and Mexico Metropolis spotlight an intergenerational method to the area’s photographic histories, with plenty of fascinating archival initiatives proven alongside modern work.
Rolf from Buenos Aires drew explicit consideration with a rediscovered collection of portraits of Twentieth-century Argentine writers. The gallery’s director, Florencia Giordana Braun, describes the pioneers she is championing as “feminine figures who broke limitations in a standard society, opening doorways for pictures throughout the area.”
Alongside this, Vermelho (São Paulo) presents a major number of works by Claudia Andujar, the Swiss-born Brazilian photographer recognized for her delicate depictions of Yanomami communities. Andujar started photographing within the Amazon after driving throughout Latin America in a Volkswagen Beetle within the Nineteen Seventies; the collection arrives in Paris following its well-received presentation at this yr’s Rencontres d’Arles. Collectively, these strands display the worth of humanist reportage as a way of reassessing political histories in Latin America.
A lot of galleries introduced new work by established names, although worth sensitivity amongst collectors meant that gross sales weren’t brisk on day one of many honest. Jackson High quality Artwork (Atlanta) presents new prints by Sally Mann, which attracted institutional consideration on the day. Collectors attending this weekend would do effectively to contemplate her work.
In contrast, Jack Davison’s new collection of formally experimental portraits—counting on in-camera manipulation, masking and improvised studio interventions—appear higher aligned with present collector urge for food for process-driven work at lower cost factors. Victoria Williams, director of Cob Gallery, says Davison’s parallel industrial profession has grow to be an asset slightly than an impediment: “Folks was cautious of a twin follow, however now there’s a way more open perspective to blended careers. Jack has a significant editorial presence, however as an artist he’s deeply invested in making objects.” She added: “He prints the whole lot himself—you may’t hold Jack away from the method.” Williams additionally famous the pressures of the second: “It has been actually difficult… the market throughout most inventive fields is having a tough time,” although she argues that pictures retains “a sort of robustness.”
On the reverse finish of the honest, the digital part provides a small however notable counterpoint to the analogue-heavy most important sector. On the TAEX sales space, Kevin Abosch offered a tightly curated number of works that reaffirmed his place as one of many extra conceptually rigorous figures exploring the emergence of AI.
Raphaëlle Peria, L’épenchoir des souvenirs (2025)
©Raphaëlle Peria
The 2025 version of the BMW Artwork Makers fee, offered yearly at Paris Picture, provides one of many honest’s most substantial contributions. This yr’s undertaking, Traversée du fragment manquant, was created by artist Raphaëlle Peria in collaboration with curator Fanny Robin. Peria’s work, recognized for its mixture of pictures and grattage, centres on the aircraft bushes of the Canal du Midi—which at the moment are being felled attributable to a fungal illness—and incorporates each modern pictures and household archives. The set up, conceived by Robin as a “crossing between two eras”, makes use of Plexiglas, copper-leaf works and superimposed pictures to evoke the erosion of panorama and reminiscence. A number of curators described it as one of many honest’s extra thought-about exhibitions.
Bourgeois acknowledges the broader financial context, noting that galleries face a tense atmosphere formed by geopolitical uncertainty and shifting collector behaviour. The honest has launched reduced-price stands for rising exhibitors, however many youthful galleries nonetheless wrestle with the price of collaborating. As Bourgeois famous: “BMW’s dedication provides artists the prospect to develop work over the long run, offering visibility and assist that’s more and more uncommon.” She underscores the rising significance of such partnerships as institutional assist for the sector retreats.
The challenges dealing with pictures stay appreciable. But, what emerges most clearly this yr was not a unified theme, however an effort—generally strained, generally profitable—to keep up breadth, ambition and a continued perception within the distinctive capacities of the medium to grasp one other perspective.
