From 12 to 15 November 2026, Paris Photo takes over the Grand Palais for its 29th edition, marking the bicentenary of photography. The fair brings together prints, books and images shaped by digital technologies: a journey that invites visitors to consider not only what photographs represent, but also how they are produced, preserved and disseminated.
A fair organised around different ways of looking
Paris Photo brings together galleries, artists, publishers and institutions. Its Main sector forms the heart of the fair, while Prismes hosts large-scale projects. This proximity matters: a photograph appears differently in a gallery space, as part of a monumental ensemble or in a publication that can be leafed through.
Other sectors offer different points of reference. Emergence showcases young artists through monographic projects, devoted to a particular approach or body of work. Editions brings together publishing houses and specialist booksellers. The photobook is therefore not merely a secondary medium: the sequence of images, their format and their relationship to text create an experience distinct from that of a print hanging on a wall.
Voices, a sector launched in 2024, is curated this year by Zasha Colah and Francesco Zanot. Their proposal is entitled “Disappearance”. Curating—in other words, selecting and organising a journey through the works—provides a framework for interpretation here; it does not reduce the works to a single reading. Visitors can focus on formal choices, subjects or the relationships between images.
Two centuries of photography, a collection to explore
The bicentenary gives this edition a historical thread. The exhibition “Revealing, Collection of Photographs of the Centre Pompidou” brings together around a hundred works by historical and contemporary artists, drawn from the institution’s holdings. The Centre Pompidou preserves more than 40 000 prints and 60 000 negatives: these collections make it possible to trace photography as an artistic practice, but also as a heritage assembled, catalogued and passed on.
The journey announced by Paris Photo is organised around two themes, “Making the Image” and “Identities”. The first draws attention to the processes and gestures involved in making an image. The second explores how photographs construct, represent or question identities. These titles are points of entry, not ready-made answers: when looking at a work, visitors can also consider its framing, scale, material or presentation.
The presence of recent acquisitions alongside works from the historic collection raises another question: how does a collection continue to take shape? A photograph acquired today joins an ensemble already shaped by choices about preservation and representation. This dialogue between older and contemporary works makes visible how the history of the medium is rewritten over time through collections.
Digital images, from production to circulation
The Digital sector, curated by Marco De Mutiis, brings together twelve galleries, curatorial platforms and special projects. The announced subjects range from social media to algorithms and artificial intelligence. The point is not simply to put a recent technology on display: it is also to examine the systems involved in creating and circulating images.
A print allows us to examine a material surface and how it is presented. A digital image, by contrast, can be copied, transformed or shared in different environments. Algorithmic tools can play a part in its production or classification. These conditions change the questions we can ask: who makes the image, what operations transform it, and in what context do we see it? The fair brings these practices into dialogue with the history of photography without suggesting that they are all equivalent.
The Elles × Paris Photo programme adds another perspective: the visibility of women artists and their place in the history of photography. Produced with the French Ministry of Culture, this edition’s programme is curated by Aldeide Delgado. It reminds us that the history presented at a fair also depends on which artists are selected and which works are made visible.
Talks and books extend the visit
The four days also include Conversations with artists and thinkers on images, including Thomas Ruff, Thomas Demand, Zanele Muholi, Tina Campt and Arno Gisinger. The announced subjects range from contemporary creation to collecting and the ways in which photography bears witness to conflicts. These discussions offer another way into the works: not through looking alone, but through the questions of making, memory and context that they raise.
Book Talks, the Paris Photo–Aperture Photobook Awards and signing sessions round out the Editions sector. More than 400 photographers, artists and authors are due to take part in the announced signing sessions. For those interested in photobooks, this part of the fair makes it possible to consider publishing as a way of arranging space: turning pages imposes a rhythm and creates connections unlike those of a gallery hanging.
Paris Photo 2026 takes place at the Grand Palais, avenue Winston-Churchill, in Paris, from Thursday 12 to Sunday 15 November. The announced opening hours are 13:00 to 20:00, with closing at 19:00 on Sunday. The fair thus offers several scales of interpretation, from the individual print to a museum collection, and from the book to the digital image. The bicentenary serves as a point of reference linking them, without erasing the differences between their media and uses.
References
Paris Photo at the Grand Palais during the 2016 edition. Archive photo.
Frédéric BISSON from Rouen, France — Wikimedia Commons — CC BY 2.0.
