Interview of Florence Bourgeois and Anna Planas

The constellation of curators associated with the fair further enriches these perspectives... 

Anna Planas: Paris Photo is a vast collaborative project. Working with Nadine Wietlisbach, Director of the Fotomuseum Winterthur, Dr Devika Singh, Senior Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute, and Devrim Bayar, Senior Curator at KANAL - Centre Pompidou, is a considerable opportunity: each of them, with their own perspective and expertise, gives us new keys to interpretation.

Florence Bourgeois: This 100% female cast, like our team, echoes the Elles x Paris Photo program, supported by the Ministry of Culture. A virtuous initiative, thanks to which the representation of women artists at the Fair has nearly doubled in seven years. 

With its Conversations, Paris Photo expands its community to other profiles. What is the spirit of this program? 

Anna Planas: Permeable to video, sculpture, or performance, photography is an open medium, the history of which the Fair retraces while anticipating its future. From one stand to another, the visitor strolls between the nineteenth century and the digital age, from Julia Margaret Cameron to Tarrah Krajnak, via Julio Le Parc and Marisa González, two precursors of generative art. Our Conversations extend these correspondences by giving the artists and gallery owners present at the Fair the opportunity to interact with writers, philosophers, designers, filmmakers... This year, we will welcome Carmen Winant and Martine Gutierrez, while Sophie Ristelhueber will discuss with Laure Adler; Many privileged exchanges that will open new fields of reflection. 

Florence Bourgeois: These events are aimed at both insiders and the general public. Paris Photo takes its mission of transmission very seriously: last year, we created an interactive educational space dedicated to children’s photo books, co-produced by the Institute for Photography and Photo Elysée. This year, Michel Poivert, in partnership with the International College of Photography of Greater Paris, has conceived a mediation space around the notion of the darkroom. A project activated throughout the fair, which will continue in the auditorium of the Grand Palais for a lecture accessible to all, in partnership with the Sorbonne University.

In these uncertain times, how does the fair manage to stay the course? 

Florence Bourgeois: Despite the turmoil, Paris Photo remains a landmark meeting place for all the players in the ecosystem. Nearly 200 institutions, most of them foreign, flock there every year! Our leading position on the international market also owes a lot to our two selection committees, which, for the galleries and for the publishers, guarantee the quality and originality of the projects presented.

Anna Planas: The fair remains in perpetual motion, always on the lookout for the latest trends and rediscoveries of an art that will soon celebrate its bicentennial. This permanent monitoring makes Paris Photo a great moment of crystallization.