The Grand Palais Éphémère, a great transient work of the 7th Arrondissement, built in record time during the confinement from Covid to replace the original being restored for the post-Olympics, returns for a few days to be the Sacred Temple of world photography with the 24th edition of Paris Photo, condenser of that great contemporary storytelling that is photography.
Susan Sontag said that while the painter constructs reality, the photographer reveals it. Paris, for over two centuries the world capital of painting, is also a candidate to become that of photography, by virtue of its (international) galleries and fairs that this one.
198 exhibitors for 149 Galleries present, 11 exhibitions, 3 awards, dozens of meetings, signatures, conversations, screenings and philanthropic initiatives, including the RED Balmain, make it the most important condenser and accelerator in the world of photography and more generally of the image as an essential narrative filter of the contemporary.
Die Mauer in Prato and the Alexnder Gallery in Porto Cervo
Of the 863 artists and photographers present, 34% (290) are women and the French gallery team cites more or less the same percentage (38%). The Italians are, so to speak, two: Die Mauer in Prato and the Alexnder Gallery in Porto Cervo.
Camera, the Turin Center of Photography, is among the visiting partners. Thus, Paris Photo celebrates itself and contemporary photography in a site that, in a few years, will disappear and that shows how much Paris knows how to renew itself, change and express that creative atmosphere that is all that the difference between the success and the defeat of a city. for those who cannot be there, there is also an online viewing room on the Fair website. For what they contra, because the photographs must be touched with the eyes, in their format, with the right light and on the right material.