Paris Photo fair attracts 60,000
Paris Photo Grand Palais November 2014
The 18th edition of Paris Photo fair took place from 13 to 16 November 2014 at Paris’ Grand Palais, attracting around 60,000 visitors over a five-day period. 143 galleries (34 of them new to the fair) and 26 photo book publishers took part, representing 35 different countries.
Important collectors and museums were present, including the following: Laurent Dassault, François Pinault Christian et Aimery Langlois-Merinne, Gregory Annenberg, committees from J.Paul Getty Museum, LACMA, Santa Fe Center for Photography, MoMA New York and Tate. Key sales of the fair included Exasperated Boy with Hand Grenade by Diane Arbus, which sold at Howard Greenberg gallery for around $500,000. A portrait of the musician Stromae by duo Pierre and Gilles sold at Templon Gallery for €120,000. The Paris Photo-Fondation Aperture prize for photographic books was given to Nicoló Degiorgis for his book Hidden Islam.
Ken Clanton from Fraenkel Gallery said to AMA: “We love it. It keeps growing, every year. For instance, outside right now, last year on Saturday it was full capacity, and right now it’s full on the Friday. Each year we get a bit more successful, and our point is to come to the fair and represent ourselves and sell some works and we’ve been very successful.”
A representative from David Zwirner gallery said that the fair has been a “really good opportunity to continue discussions with European curators”, describing it as “the best photo fair”. Their third year at the event, the gallery noted that they had a particularly good response to their solo exhibition of works by Christopher Williams, commenting that, “the longer the presence you have at these fairs the more people become familiar with your programme. So obviously that’s been something that’s continued to grow for us.”
Important auctions which took place at the same time as the fair, however, may have suffered from the attention drawn to Paris Photo, five of the most important auctions at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Arterial failing to reach the lower end of their estimates.