Archival pigment print on 1mm aluminium. Handmade maple frame. 70 x 50 cm. Edition of 5 + 2AP. © Jannemarein Renout / Courtesy of Galerie Bart.
As Paris Photo 2023 gets under way, Diane Smyth takes a look at the other must-see shows and fairs taking place across the French capital this week
Beyond Paris Photo, photography runs through many other exhibitions and popup events across Paris this week. Polycopies, the photobook fair on a boat in the Port de Solférino, is open the same weekend as the main fair. Set up in 2014, Polycopies now runs a series of awards supporting photobooks in the making, backed by the French Ministry of Culture. Its inaugural winners include BJP Ones to Watch 2023 winner Mahmoud Khattab for his publication The Dog Sat Where We Parted; as well as Odette England for The Long Shadow with Libraryman; and Collectif les Globules Noirs for La Resistance de Nos Corps à l’Oubli (made with Les Éditions sur la Crête).
The fair also hosts signings and talks including the launch of the 2023 Photoworks Annual, edited by BJP’s Diane Smyth. Offprint is another photo-orientated book fair, which also encompasses artists’ books and publications on the arts and humanities more generally. Supported by LUMA, it is held at the Pavillon de l’Arsenal from 09 until 12 November.
Held in Le Molière, 40 rue de Richelieu, an old hôtel particulier (mansion or townhouse), approche is the photography fair where less is more. Just 11 galleries are taking part this year, each showing the work of a single artist. Approche focuses on imagemakers experimenting with the medium, and will feature the UK’s Open Doors, Egypt’s Tintera, and South Africa’s Afronova. Each is showing work by a new generation of artists – Kensuke Koike, Ibrahim Ahmed, and Vuyo Mabheka respectively. Jean-Vincent Simonet’s work, on show at Paris Photo last year, will be presented by Intervalle. Places at approche can be reserved via its website.
PhotoSaintGermain is a huge photography festival running from 02 to 25 November, including free exhibitions across the Left Bank. Institutions and galleries involved include the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Centre tchèque de Paris, and Maison de l’Amérique Latine, as well as Munich’s Daniel Blau and Galerie Roger-Viollet. Bookshops and pop-ups also take part, including Delpire & Co. The standard is high, with Nicole Gravier’s Mythes et Clichés at the Hotel La Louisiane, for example, coming fresh from Les Rencontres d’Arles.
There are also photography exhibitions in Paris’ many institutions and museums, including a show by Viviane Sassen at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, and a large group show, Corps à corps – Histoire(s) de la photographie at Centre Pompidou, looking at photographic representations of the human race in the 20th and 21st centuries. Other institutions worth a visit include Le BAL, Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jeu de Paume, and Palais de Tokyo, as well as private foundations such as Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.
