What to Expect From Paris Photo

Paris Photo is back at the Grand Palais! The 27th edition of one of the world’s most important photo and book fairs will take place this week from November 7 to 10, with 240 exhibitors from 34 countries. From Jim Jarmusch's unique curator’s project centred around Man Ray’s cinematography and a contemporary take on Richard Avedon’s classic works from Tyler Mitchell to new voices to put on your radars  - here is everything you need to know about this year’s fair.

Jim Jarmush is the guest of honour

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Surrealism, a movement that transformed the art of photography once and forever, Paris Photo invites Amercian filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist Jim Jarmusch to curate a personal selection of artworks. Why Jarmusch? The filmmaker with his band SQÜRL has recently worked on the score for four restored Man Ray’s film masterpieces: Le retour à la raison (1923), Emak-Bakia(1926), L’étoile de mer (1928), and Les mystères du château du Dé (1929), that will be projected as a preview in two cinemas in Paris during the fair, with a public release scheduled for November 13.

"As a restless teenager, surrealism was a revelation to me, first in its visual forms and then its literary ones. In my early twenties, it first drew me to Paris, where I repeatedly used Breton’s NADJA as a kind of walking map through the mysterious nocturnal streets of the city,” shares Jim Jarmusch. “This year’s Paris Photo in part celebrates the centenary of this defiant and joyful artistic disruption. The selections in my personal curation, though not purely surrealist, reflect its tenants of the transformation of the ordinary into the dream-like, and at times vice-versa. I’m also very proud to have partially instigated the restorations of Man Ray’s striking surrealist films from the 1920s by having created, with Carter Logan as our band SQÜRL, new post-rock scores to accompany.”

The filmmaker will be present at the fair on Friday, November 8, to give a talk open to the public.

Perfect duo: Richard Avedon & Tyler Mitchell

Specifically for the time of the fair, Gagosian invited American photographer Tyler Mitchell, known for his signature style, depicting intimate moments of repose and connection and exploring Black life, community, and self-determination (he was the first Black photographer to shoot a cover story for American Vogue in 2018), to try himself as a curator and create a joint exhibition of his works in an imaginary conversation with Richard Avedon’s iconic shots. Entitled “Avedon and Me” the show will feature Avedon’s works from the 1960s alongside a selection of Mitchell’s photographs from the past six years, including some that will be shown for the very first time. A must-see.

Girl Power

Paris Photo is always known for its special focus on diversity. Created in 2018 with the support of Kering’s Women in Motion programme and in partnership with the French Ministry of Culture, Elles × Paris Photo project gives a spotlight to female talents and has helped to increase the proportion of women artists in the fair from 20% to 38%. This year the program will be curated by Raphaëlle Stopin, director of the Centre Photographique Rouen Normandie and former artistic director of one of the most important photo festivals - Festival de Hyères.

“I was keen to focus on photographers, who were active during the post-war period and the following decades, while also not neglecting the previous generations, those who suffered most from being excluded from history despite the artistic contribution of women”, explains her selection Raphaëlle Stopin. “In a similar vein, this led me to want to highlight the plurality of paths taken by women artists. To counter the models and norms conveyed by photography, women artists who took up photography during the post-war period often attempted to create different images of their bodies and conditions, tackling, sometimes in a very direct way, the restrictions imposed on their gender.”

Dora Maurer, Camille Vivier, Michiko Kon, Lebohang Kganye, Letizia Battaglia, Lois Conner, Alina Frieske, and Frida Orupabo -  are among some of the female talents on view at Paris Photo.

Giving voices

This year, a new curated section, Voices, features a curated proposal centred around three contemporary themes. The selection has been created under the direction of three major international female curators. In her selection entitled “4 Walls”, Sonia Voss dives into the world of Eastern and Northern European photographers during the Cold War, who, armed with the sovereignty of their bodies, imagination, and often humour, confronted restrictions on freedom, censorship, and the normativity of images. Meanwhile, Elena Navarro in her project “Imperfect Paradises” explores the vibrant and complex scene of contemporary imagery in Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina, from historical photography to contemporary artists that are pushing the boundaries of the medium. Finally, Azu Nwagbogu in her selection “Liberated Bodies” invites us to challenge and extricate the objectivity of archives — both those we inherit and those we create, and focuses on photography as a means of understanding deeper emotional truths.

Courtesy: Paris Photo

Text: Lidia Ageeva