Paris Photo 2026: what to see at the fair and around the city
Paris Photo 2026 opens today at the Grand Palais and runs through Sunday, November 15. The 29th edition falls in the year France marks 200 years of photography, and much of the program looks back at the medium’s early days. Our picks include the oldest processes at the fair, a few newcomers and three stops elsewhere in the city: Thomas Ruff, Hans P. Kraus Jr., Stanley Kubrick, Kingsley Ifill, Alessandro Calabrese, Elle Pérez, Alba Yruela, Léonard Pongo, Polycopies, Nanténé Traoré and the BnF’s Japanese photography show.
At the fair
Thomas Ruff
The first thing you see inside the Grand Palais is a 36-meter wall of work by the German photographer Thomas Ruff. All five of his galleries produced it together. The installation is conceived as an open book and covers more than 40 years of his practice, from analog photographs to digital simulations. Ruff talks about his work with Florian Ebner, head of photography at the Centre Pompidou, on Thursday, November 12, at 2 pm.
Hans P. Kraus Jr.
For the bicentennial, the New York dealer Hans P. Kraus Jr. shows work by the medium’s first photographers: Louis Daguerre, William Henry Fox Talbot, Girault de Prangey and Anna Atkins. Atkins made cyanotypes of British algae and bound them into volumes from 1843, a year before Talbot published The Pencil of Nature. Her books are often called the first photobook. This is the best place at the fair to see the earliest processes up close.
Stanley Kubrick at Duncan Miller Gallery
Before he made films, Stanley Kubrick worked as a photographer for Look magazine. Duncan Miller Gallery from Santa Monica shows pictures from those assignments, including images that have never been published or exhibited. Booth A20, Main sector.
Kingsley Ifill at Hannah Barry Gallery
The British artist Kingsley Ifill shows Amor Fati, a series of 20 black-and-white platinum-palladium prints on Japanese Tosa washi paper. Each one sits in a hand-carved wooden frame. Hannah Barry Gallery from London presents the series in the Emergence sector, which is dedicated to new artists and galleries. Booth H02.
Alessandro Calabrese at Viasaterna
In the Voices sector, Milan’s Viasaterna shows Alessandro Calabrese alongside Guido Guidi. Calabrese prints on the “wrong” side of glossy photo paper, which gives his images painterly, electric colors. He compares the result to a watercolor made automatically. Prices range from $2,440 to $8,430. Booth B57.
Elle Pérez at Public Relations
Elle Pérez has a solo presentation with Public Relations from New York. Pérez works with photography, collage and film, and is part of this year’s Elles x Paris Photo selection, curated by Aldeide Delgado. On Friday, November 13, Pérez talks with the writer and curator Gem Fletcher in a conversation co-presented by Aperture and Fletcher’s podcast, The Messy Truth.
Alba Yruela at Chiquita Room
Alba Yruela makes her Paris Photo debut with Chiquita Room, a Barcelona gallery in the Emergence sector. Her photograph Ous de granota (2025) shows frogspawn in murky water. It is also part of the Elles x Paris Photo path, which highlights women photographers across the fair. Women now make up 38 percent of the artists at Paris Photo, up from 20 percent in 2018.
Léonard Pongo at Kristof De Clercq
The Belgian photographer Léonard Pongo shows work from Primordial Earth with Kristof De Clercq from Ghent, in the Voices sector. The long-term project is about the landscapes of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where his father’s family comes from. The series won the OIF prize at the Rencontres de Bamako. Pongo lives and works between Brussels and Kinshasa.
Beyond the fair
Polycopies
The photobook fair Polycopies is on the Concorde-Atlantique boat at Port de Solférino, opposite the Musée d’Orsay, from 1 pm on Wednesday, November 11. It started in 2014 with around 35 publishers. This year nearly 100 publishers and booksellers are on the boat and the quay beside it. Nicolas Polli of Ciao Press, one of the exhibitors, recommends arriving as soon as the doors open.
Nanténé Traoré at the MEP
In the Studio at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Nanténé Traoré shows pays des merveilles, the artist’s first solo museum show. The pictures were taken in Brittany on expired film from the 1990s. The show is part of Photo Days, a program of photography exhibitions across Paris throughout November. MEP, 5/7 rue de Fourcy, 4th arrondissement.
Photographies japonaises at the BnF
The BnF’s François-Mitterrand site shows Japanese photography from 1945 to 2025. The works come from one of the first Western collections of postwar Japanese photography, started in the late 1960s. There are around 250 prints and 50 rare books, plus a section on Japanese photographers in Paris. Shigeo Gochō and Shōji Ueda are among the artists. Galerie 2, Quai François Mauriac, 13th arrondissement, through January 31, 2027.
Paris Photo runs through November 15, 2026, at the Grand Palais.
More info: parisphoto.com
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