The twenty-first edition of Paris Photo opens this week. It runs from the 9th to the 12th of November at the Grand Palais in Paris. In the building’s cavernous nave no fewer than one hundred and sixty galleries and thirty publishers from thirty different countries will be present. The Eye of Photography is your guide for visiting the dozens of stands.
Gilles Caron, Swiss Rebels and Junglin Lee’s roads
For the third consecutive year, the Salon d’honneur on the upper floor is hosting Prismes. On the programme: fourteen major projects: installations, serial works and large prints. Among them, photographs by Gilles Caron, who has been nicknamed the “French Capa”. The School Olivier Castaing gallery is showing a panoramic wallpaper entitled “choreography of the revolt” paying a tribute to the photographer who died at the age of thirty. As the gallery says, he made the true “writing of the revolt” by immortalising the large-scale protests – such as May ‘68 – and giving back the live bodies of the protesters, bodies frozen, on the attack, in the air… Next to him the Esther Woerdehoff gallery will show twenty exceptional prints by the autodidact Karlheinz Weinberger from the series Swiss Rebels which is about the faces of marginalised Swiss youth in the 1950s. Another event: photographs by the Korean Jungjin Lee and her Unnamed Road; desert roads that disappear into the horizon in vibrant black and white. Prismes will also show works by the Greek photographer Evangelia Kranioti, the Washington Documentaries by the Japanese photographer Katsunobu Yaguchi and also the urban landscapes from the American photographer John Chiara and his series About Mississippi.
A place of honour for German photograph
Prismes is also presenting three proponents of German photography. The photographer Timm Rautert invites us to look at his Deutsche in Uniform (Germans in Uniform) posing in front of a plain background that highlights their clothes. The Kicken gallery is showing work by Klaus Rinke entitled Mutations 1 that gives pride of place to his performances close to Action Art. Next to him, the Berlin gallery Only Photography honours Wilhelm Schürmann and his scenes of ordinary German life, his urban contemplations. Added to these photographs is an exhibition of the work of Karl Hugo Schmölz and his vintage prints form the 1950s presented by the Van der Grinten gallery.
The solo shows: Los Angeles and Yamamoto
Among the twenty-nine solo shows, the work by Dana Lixenberg, represented by Grimm, is outstanding. For twenty-two years the Dutch photographer has immortalised the lives of the inhabitants of the Imperial Courts neighbourhood in Los Angeles in the USA, which was the epicentre of the race riots in April 1992. Also from Los Angeles, Lise Sarfati’s new series entitled Oh man, a stroll in the city where she met unemployed men in the nearly empty streets bathed in clear light. Don’t forget Denis Rouvre’s portraits shown for the first time at Paris Photo by Project 2.0 and also one of the great contemporary Japanese photographers: Masao Yamamoto, presented by the Etherton gallery.
Iran, Russia and India
Also not to be missed: Payram’s photographs on the Maubert stand. Chased out of Iran in 1983 by the Islamic revolution, the photographer has developed a body of work based on the condition of exile. He reflects primarily on the memory of his country in a work that reinterprets his negatives in black and white prints. Next to him the Russian photographer Olga Chernysheva presents work based on Baudelaire’s phrase: “to paint modern life”, recapturing the Russian thought that the visual arts can show the social changes at work on the country. The Tasveer gallery is showing vintage gelatine silver prints by the Indian photographer Raghu Rai, discovered in his time by Henri Cartier Bresson and who immortalised Indian street-life. Also not to miss, the photographs by the Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi who leads us on a colourful journey made up of objects from daily life (apple, a cigarette lighter’s flame…) and small visual encounters (fireworks, the flight of a flock of birds…) Also, previously unseen photographs by the painter Sigmar Polke who sometimes used a camera in his work. Similar to his paintings and drawings, his photographs use humour and derision to tackle his opinions on politics and society as well as his metaphysical research on alchemy.
The Duo-Shows
Among the twelve duo-shows at the Grand Palais, the presence of the Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken alongside Robby Müller, brought together by the Annet Gelink gallery will stay with us. Also to see: Katrin Koenning and Sarker Protick with their series Astres noirs, where the photographers question the chiaroscuro of images mixed with clear black and white contrasts; the duo Yojiro Imasaka and Dominique Paul who question our relationship with nature and landscape; the two Hungarians Laszlo Lakner and Janos Major who explore their country’s past, the cold war and today’s challenges.
The Plateforme
An experimental forum, the Platforme is hosting lectures on photography by eminent specialists. David Campany will talk about colour: what it represents for photography from an aesthetic, social and technical point of view. Mouna Mekouar will question photography in that it deceives the eye and shows it deceives. For his part Cristiano Raimondo will give a brief history of photography, from the beginning of the nineteenth century until today, from “the pioneers’ reality to the meta-reality of the digital universe”.
The gaze of two guests: Karl Lagerfeld and Patti Smith
The fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld is guest of honour at this edition of Paris Photo. He will share his favourites in the form a new route among the thousands of works on show at the fair, and a book published in a special edition by Steidl. Next to him, the Gagosian Gallery has given free rein to Patti Smith who will show her favourite photographs.
Two new things: the cinema and young European creative photography
For the first time Paris Photo is opening itself up to the cinema with four days of screenings. The first day will be devoted to Marin Karmit’s choice, notably with Noémie Goudal’s film Tanker where an oil tanker’s crew members are filmed going down into a tank twenty-three metres deep. The programme will then continue under the watchful eye of Matthieu Orlean of the French Cinematheque.
Another new thing: a platform for discovery, visibility, exchange and meetings aimed at young talent in Masters or Bachelors programmes in European schools of photography and the visual arts. Four students’ projects are chosen from among more than fifty schools, and shown to the public in an exhibition at the Gare du Nord (until the end of November) as well as during Paris Photo.
Jean-Baptiste Gauvin
Jean-Baptiste Gauvin is a journalist, author and director who lives and works in Paris.
Paris Photo 2017
From 9th to 12th November 2017
Grand Palais
3 Avenue du Général Eisenhower
75008 Paris
France
