Paris Photo 2012. Grand Palais, Paris
Paris Photo has been running since 1997 and this year the 2012 edition runs from 15th - 17th November at The Grand Palais in Paris. The art fair brings together more than 150 international exhibitors and presents several platforms and curated exhibitions. Launching this year is 'Paris Photo vu par...' (seen by...) which will invite a different personalities to choose works from the galleries for a personal and specialised 'journey'. This will materialise in a publication and mobile application that guides visitors around the fair. This years choice comes from David Lynch and includes stills from Sergei M. Eisenstein's most famous film, The Battleship Potemkin and photographs from Christian Patterson and over 90 others.
Alongside the core commercial and profile-building focus of the fair, publications also take centre stage. Paris Photo have teamed up with the Aperture Foundation in New York to present two awards. First Photobook shortlists 20 new photographic monographs published within the last year and awards $10,000 to the winner of this category. These books are often self published and the award gives important exposure and profile to emerging photographers. Highlights this year include – Jérôme Sessini's The Wrong side: Living on the Mexican Border which explores drug-related violence on the U.S-Mexican border through a series of saturated and velvety colour photographs and Afronauts by Christina de Middel which reimagines the true story of the failed 1964 Zambian space programme through images that provoke consideration of the photograph as document.
For more established photographers, Photobook of the Year, includes publications from Sophie Calle with Rachel, Monique – which tells the story of the artists deceased mother and is based on a series of installations completed at The Palais de Tokyo in 2010 and the ambitious tome that is Stephen Shore's Book of Books, a 250 edition print on demand project that will each be signed and numbered by the artist and brings together over 1,000 images in two volumes.
During 2012's Paris Photo, and following many art fair's adoption of Biennial-like critical platforms, artists and experts have been invited for Paris Photo Platform. A major draw will be Thursday's “The Emergence of the Düsseldorf Photography School and its Transatlantic Relationship with Contemporary American Artists” with speakers including Hilla Becher and Curator of the International Centre of Photography New York, Christopher Phillips.
In April 2013 for the next edition of Paris Photo, 80 international galleries will converge on Paramount Pictures Studios in Los Angeles.
