5 Photographers You Need To Know From Paris Photo

Since 1997 Paris Photo has brought photography fans, curators and collectors to Paris with its promise of new talent, as well as its collection of rare editions by photo masters available for sale. Founded by art publisher Rik Gadella, in 2012 the fair partnered with Aperture Foundation to launch the Aperture PhotoBook Awards, and for the last ten years its $10,000 prize has helped launch the careers of artists including Vasantha Yogananthan, Dayanita Singh and Michael Christopher Brown.

With the arrival of the inaugural Art Basel Paris only two weeks before Paris Photo at the end of October this year, fair organizers were concerned that Art Basel Paris would dominate Paris Photo’s status as an independent champion of talent with visiting collectors. But by noon on the fair’s first day, footfall was high as the fair continued to champion established photographers including Viviane Sassen and Tania Franco Klein, alongside emerging names such as Pao Houa Her and Arash Hanaei. Here, we round up five of the standout photographers to know from the 25th edition of Paris Photo.

Deana Lawson, Andreen, 2022

Gagosian gallery exhibited intimate portraits by the American photographers Deana Lawson and Sally Mann alongside each other — the result cast the work of each of the iconoclast female photographers in an even stronger light. The two women collaborated on the selection in the show, with Lawson’s Andreen and Mann’s Kare and the Cadet speaking to the importance of women’s direct gaze to the camera.

Deborah Turbeville, From the Valentino Collection, 1977

After a decade spent as the fashion director of Harper’s Bazaar US, Deborah Turbeville went on to become a fashion photographer, creating images that challenged the conventional boundaries of fashion editorial and art. Her image of models in couture by the designer Valentino is an example of her trademark lens that explored both the humanity and pathos of glamor.

Tania Franco Klein, Toaster (self-portrait), from the series Our Life in the Shadows, 2016

Franco Klein exhibited a series of photographs from her 2016 series Our Life in the Shadows — a collection that sees the artist become the voyeur to the individualistic lives of contemporary Americans. The Mexican photographer is inspired by William Eggleston, Diane Arbus and Alec Soth in her spotlight on the cracks in the American dream.

Laurie Simmons, Walking Camera II (Jimmy the Camera), 1987

Simmons’s black and white print nods to surrealist female photographers Dora Maar and Lee Miller, and their animation of ordinary household possessions. The work is part of a series created in the 1980s that brings to life inanimate objects, from dolls to toy houses. Walking Camera II was inspired by the everyday mid-century American ephemera the artist grew up around.

Arash Hanaei, Suburban Hauntolofy, 2022

Iranian photographer Arash Hanaei has reimagined the outskirts of Paris with his series Suburban Hauntology at BMW Art Makers, a comment on the social responsibility of state housing and the oversights in the current French system. Curated by art historian Morad Montazam, the booth allows Hanaei to comment on the tension between art and politics that his cult following know him for.

Paris Photo runs until 14 November.