Paris Photo

Friday 16th of November I paid a visit to Paris Photo. This yearly fair is the key meeting point in Europe for galleries, editors, publishers and collectors. It's a good opportunity to see what's cooking in the photographic art world. I spent a full day which is just about enough to do a good survey, but one could easily spend two days if one took the time to look more attentively. I've tried to summarise my main observations in a few points. 

• Variety: it really is difficult to say what works as photographic art. Anything seems possible. I've seen strong stuff but mediocre or (to my mind) very weak things as well. Lots of the contemporary stuff is simply very business-like, prosaic. You wonder what the message is. The conceptual rubs elbows with the traditional, figurative. Although I didn't see a lot of the hard core conceptual stuff that fills the pages of Phaedon's "Vitamin P". Large formats abound, it's true. Colour dominates but b&w holds itself surprisingly well (and juding by the red dots sells very well too).  There were a fair amount of vintage images, from the early dawn of the practice to the apogee of humanist photography. All in all a very confusing medley. In terms of prints, inkjet seems to win steady ground on traditional baryta paper. 

• Italy: was the guest of honour, represented by classics such Fontana, Jodice, Giacomelli, Basilico and some fresh talent such as Federico Jodice (son of ...) who is straddling the boundaries between photography, performance and conceptual art. There was one very interesting discovery for me: Raffaela Mariniello. I had never come across the name but I was struck by two books lying around at the booth of Studio Trisorio, a photo gallery in Milan (www.studiotrisorio.com). Striking b&w photography, mostly in industrial settings and taken by night, reminiscent on the one hand of Jodice's theatrical settings and, on the other hand, of the brooding atmosphere in the works of the metaphysical painters such as De Chirico. I was impressed and was happy to be able to buy her "Napoli" book (out of print) on the spot. Later on I went back and met her personally at her gallery's stand. We talked a little bit about her work. When I mentioned it reminded me of Jodice (who, just as Mariniello, hails from Napels) she retorted quite bitterly that it was rather the other way around. I asked whether she gave masterclasses or workshops. She did only rarely. Italy is very insular, she said. People didn't seek her out. And she didn't specifically look for opportunities. Finally Raffaela talked about her new work which is in colour. Impressive, large format canvases taken with a large format camera (I believe she said 11x20"). It's very different from her b&w work. She continues to work at dusk or at night, but shifted her hunting grounds to the teeming tourist spots one finds everywhere in Italy (she called the series somewhat ironically "Souvenirs d'Italie"). Working with long exposure times, she creates images where the antique remains contrast silently with the fleeting, ghostly buzz of the tourist attractions. Impressive how Marinielli made such a dramatic shift in substance, technique and setting and immediately seemed to have found a distinctive voice. Raffaela Mariniello does not have a website but work of her can be seen at www.studiotrisorio.com/html/artist.asp?ID=35

• Expensive: I was struck by the high prices that pictures fetch.  800 euro must have been the minimum. Even vintage anonymous work went for 1000 euros and more. I had the secret hope of acquiring a Mimmo Jodice one day, but at 7-8000 euro for a print (90x90cm, too big for my taste as well), this is clearly a no go. For 2000-2500 euros you can do some nice shopping. But the large format contemporary work sells for much, much more.  

• Books: Paris-Photo is a very interesting opportunity for the collector and connaisseur of vintage photo books. Many important dealers, from Europe and further away, are represented on the fair. I was delighted to get to know Journal, a Swedish publisher of photo books. It's a family business, run by Göran Fleming and his wife. They have been in the business for decades, focusing mostly on work by Scandinavian photographers. Anders Petersen published his first books with Journal. Amazingly, they don't even have a website but seem to be able to do well without this seemingly indispensable interface with the world. Other suppliers of vintage books include Harper's Books, Simon Finch Rare Books, Antiquariaat Van Paddenburgh, Denis Ozanne. Ubiquitous Phaidon, Taschen and Steidl were present too. Interesting was Edition Filigranes, a small French publisher of limited edition artists books. Inspiring to look around and browse through the different concepts on offer. I left the fair with two nice copies of vintage books: Sudek's "Praha Panoramicka" and Koudelka's "Black Triangle".