Art world report·Paris
Paris Photo Turns Its Second Floor Over to 20 Emerging Photographers for Photography's Bicentenary
Paris Photo's 29th edition opens at the Grand Palais on 12 November with 246 exhibitors from 38 countries. While a Thomas Ruff retrospective marks 200 years of photography, the fair's Emergence Sector gives 20 solo projects by younger galleries and artists from 10 countries a dedicated platform.
Paris Photo returns to the Grand Palais on 12 November for a 29th edition that carries extra weight: the fair coincides with the bicentenary of photography, and 246 exhibitors from 38 countries will fill the Paris landmark. A new retrospective installation by Thomas Ruff greets visitors at the entrance, while dealers in vintage work take over the main floor with pieces tracing the medium back to its earliest experiments.
Not everything at the fair looks backwards. The second floor is given over to the Emergence Sector, reserved for younger galleries and artists, which this year brings together 20 solo projects from 10 countries. Artistic director Anna Planas calls it a place of discovery, offering visibility to galleries and artists who remain underrepresented internationally. She points to subjects ranging from everyday life to memory, identity and political history, and to practices mixing photography with archives, textiles, writing and staged imagery.
The roster shows that variety. Ricardo Cases, shown by Galeria Reus of Palma, photographs a carpenter dozing in his workshop, turning a routine moment into a reflection on labour. Randa Mirza, with Tanit of Beirut, combines images, poetry and calligraphy to address the war in southern Lebanon. At Bombon Projects in Barcelona, Agnes Essonti Luque confronts colonial plunder and the return of looted objects, while Dev Dhunsi, with Melk of Oslo, blends photography and textiles to explore diaspora, colonial history and displacement.
Other artists push at what a photograph can be made of. Magdalena Wysocka and Claudio Pogo, with Estonia's Kristina Ollek, all shown by Open Doors of London, experiment with the material basis of the image, while Brandon Gercara of DS Galerie in Paris and Yumna Al-Arashi of Homecoming in Amsterdam carry questions of materiality into imaginary territory. The sector also hosts Philippe Jarrigeon, winner of the Maison Ruinart Prize, whose new work Le Vrai du Faux, presented by Womanray of Paris, centres on the contorted Faux de Verzy trees of the Champagne region, shown in a dedicated space as figures glowing in a dreamlike landscape. Paris Photo runs at the Grand Palais from 12 to 15 November 2026.
