Top 10 Highlights You Must See At Photo London 2023

Photo London returns to Somerset House today for its eighth edition, presenting 125 exhibitors from 56 cities from across the globe showing the best of the past, present and future of photography. Highlights of the 2023 edition include rare vintage gems and exciting contemporary works, all for sale in limited editions or as unique pieces.

1. Martin Parr, Recent Works

This 2023 edition of Photo London has chosen the “godfather of British photography” Martin Parr, as this year’s Master of Photography, with a special exhibition. He has been photographing ordinary people and their lives in Great Britain and Ireland for 50 years. Here he presents an exhibition of recent work, including the installation Beach Therapy.

2.Writing her own Script: Woman Photographers from the Hyman Collection

Writing her own Script: Woman Photographers from the Hyman Collection, a group show celebrating many of the pioneering women photographers at work in the UK over the past 100 years. It ranges from the 1930s to the present to provide an overview of photography in Britain that focuses on two strands: a humanistic documentary tradition and a more personal, performative, practice. The exhibition takes its name from a large-scale photograph by Susan Hiller.

3.Fotografía Maroma, Mexico

Celebrating contemporary Mexican photography, Belmond hotel commissioned this exhibition featuring the work of four Mexican photographers: Patricia Lagarde, Javier Hinojosa, Ilán Rabchinskey and Margot Kalach. The artists were invited to the Riviera Maya, in the Yucatan Peninsula, where they were given two weeks to capture the bounty and beauty of the beguiling natural landscape using their own particular sensibility and artistic vision.

4.Photo London x Nikon Emerging Photographer Award 2023

The winner of Photo London x Nikon Emerging Photographer Award 2023 just announced in the Nikon Gallery, Somerset House is Léa Habourdin, a French visual artist represented by Fisheye Gallery. Léa Habourdin’s series is a set of exquisite large-format works encapsulating the beauty of the primary French forest.

5.Lorenzo Vitturi, Flowers Gallery, London

Intriguing mixed media works use fishing nets, yarns and Murano glass. Lorenzo Vitturi, a photographer and sculptor based in London is a former cinema set painter. He’s brought this experience into his photographic practice, which revolves around site-specific interventions at the intersection of photography, sculpture and performance. In Vitturi’s process, photography in conceived as a space of transformation, where different disciplines merge together to represent the complexities of changing urban environments.

6.Claire Aho, Aho & Soldan Photo & Film Foundation, Helsinki, Finland

Presented here are the unique works by Claire Aho (1925-2015), an innovative woman who made her mark in the history of color photography. A highlight is the photograph created in 1952, of the new “Finlandia Sweets” jelly box, created for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II by Finnish confectionary company Fazer. Since the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902, Fazer has gifted the Buckingham Palace with sweets, a tradition upheld even today, 121 years later. “Finlandia Sweets – The Coronation Box” and other works are available as either unique works or Limited Edition prints.

7.Kaveh Kazemi and Mohammadreza Mirzaei, O Gallery, Tehran, Iran

A fascinating and important contribution from Tehran-based O Gallery, a platform that supports and displays Iranian artists’ distinct visual experiences. The two street photographers here, Kaveh Kazemi (b. 1952) and Mohammadreza Mirzaei (b. 1986), are two of Iran’s most prominent photographers. Kazemi documented the 1979 revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. Mohammadreza Mirzaei is one of the new generation photographers, who, by studying in the West, has established a critical relationship with mainstream Western photography.

8.Jeffery Becton, Koman Fine Art, Vero Beach, USA

Inspired by the tidal reaches and atmospheric weather near his Deer Isle home and the summer homes on the Blue Hill Peninsula, Jeffery Becton creates provocative photo-based digital montages, often playing with the borders between dream and reality, interior and exterior, abstraction and representation. His montages often contain architectural elements and objects from these vintage New England houses, many of which are part of his personal history.

9.Atong Atem, Messums, London

Award-winning Ethiopian-born, South Sudanese artist Atong Atem lives in Melbourne. She works primarily with photography and video to explore identity through portraiture and in particular the fluidity of migrant narratives and postcolonial practices in the African diaspora. Her work references the works of the great photographers Malick Sidibe and Seydou Keita, as well as science fiction writers such as Octavia Butler.

10.Jean Pierre Attal, Galerie Olivier Waltman, Paris

Jean-Pierre Attal’s work is focused on the representation of contemporary urban society. His photographs resemble a sociological investigation. First like an anthropologist, he collects primary data on the ground, and then using a concise visual language, he crystallizes a snapshot of the supercharged metropolis.

Photo London, 11–14 May 2023, Somerset House Tickets: preview day £70. Standard day ticket £32