This week, the Grand Palais once again opens its glass doors to photographers, collectors, and enthusiasts from around the world. After a period of renovation, the fair returns for the second year to its historic home, reaffirming its central role as the meeting point of the global photography community. Beneath the vast iron and glass nave, 179 galleries and 43 publishers draw a living map of the medium — from the pioneers of the 19th century to the most daring contemporary experiments.
For its directors Florence Bourgeois and Anna Planas, the 2025 edition is a renewal. The fair’s new layout, they explain, offers a “sequenced parcours that tells a story about the image.” Designed as a series of encounters — between artists and curators, collectors and newcomers, histories and futures — Paris Photo continues to expand its dialogue with moving image, performance, and digital culture.
This year, the fair is organized into five major sectors: the Principal, Voices, Digital, Émergence, and Éditions. Alongside the Elles × Paris Photo trail, the Carte Blanche program, and partner exhibitions throughout the city, these spaces create a portrait of photography in motion — a place where the act of seeing becomes an experience in itself.
Paris Photo can also be an overwhelming experience, so for you Blind made a list of 10 things to do at the Grand Palais.
1. Rediscover the Grand Palais
Paris Photo’s return to the Grand Palais is more than symbolic. The restored monument, flooded with daylight, provides an incredibly beautiful setting that mirrors the vitality of the fair. Around every corner, the light shifts — echoing the multiplicity of photographic practices gathered here. “Paris Photo remains a place of encounters for the entire ecosystem,” says Florence Bourgeois. From historic archives to experimental installations, the fair reminds visitors that photography’s strength lies in its capacity to connect eras, continents, and gazes.
2. Explore the principal sector
At the center of the nave, the Principal Sector forms the beating heart of Paris Photo. This year, 138 galleries from 27 countries converge to present an exceptional range of projects — from iconic names to rediscoveries and premieres.
Among the highlights, Sophie Ristelhueber’s monumental installation with Galerie Poggi extends across 36 meters of wall, bringing together decades of work on landscapes marked by conflict. At Klemm’s (Berlin), Adrian Sauer’s “Truth Table” questions the construction of the image, while Isabel Hurley (Málaga) unveils Marisa González’s “Thermofax series” (1975–77), a pioneering experiment in thermal reproduction shown in France for the first time. Elsewhere, Mario Cresci’s conceptual works at Large Glass and Matèria open a dialogue with the collages of Nicoletta Deva Tortone and Paolo Gioli (Alberto Damian), while Rolf Art (Buenos Aires) presents the intertwined careers of Sara Facio and Alicia D’Amico. At the Clémentine de la Ferronière gallery, Lee Shulman’s golden images dazzle. Throughout the fair, one also finds established names: Jack Davison, Peter Hujar, Guy Tillim, Mark Power, Sabiha Çimen, Sofia Coppola…
A constellation of solo shows deepens this panorama: Claudia Andujar’s portraits of the Yanomami (Vermelho, São Paulo), Sally Mann’s intimate adolescence series “At Twelve” (Jackson, Atlanta), and Paul Kooiker’s disquieting compositions (tegenboschvanvreden, Amsterdam). From Fred Herzog’s urban color at Equinox (Vancouver) to Ming Smith’s spectral figures (M77, Milan) and Larry Clark’s raw intimacy (Ruttkowski;68, Cologne), the Principal Sector embodies what Anna Planas calls “a vast project of correspondences between memory and invention.”
3. Listen to the Voices
At the heart of the fair, the Voices section continues its curatorial exploration. This year, Devika Singh and Nadine Wietlisbach bring together two perspectives: the politics of landscape and the complexity of kinship. Singh’s “Landscapes” features artists such as Gauri Gill, Daniele Genadry, and Mohammad Ghazali, whose images turn geography into metaphor. Wietlisbach’s “Where We Meet – Ambiguous Kinship” assembles Rinko Kawauchi, Torbjørn Rødland, and Paul Mpagi Sepuya, exploring vulnerability and belonging. “Photography,” she says, “is both a light and a language — it illuminates what we share, and what separates us.”
4. Enter the Digital Sphere
Curated by Nina Roehrs, the Digital Sector bridges art and technology, presenting thirteen galleries that experiment with AI, blockchain, and virtual imagery. Kevin Abosch, Anna Ridler, and Reuben Wu expand photography’s limits into the coded and the immaterial. On the balcony, Cole Sternberg’s installation “A Garden,” created in collaboration with UNICEF-ITU’s Giga initiative, invites reflection on digital access and education. In Roehrs’ words, “the digital realm doesn’t replace photography — it enlarges its territory.”
5. Discover emerging talents
On the upper balconies, the Émergence section introduces twenty solo presentations from a new generation of artists. From Sylvie Bonnot’s material explorations (Hangar, Brussels) to Camila Falquez’s empowered portraits (Hannah Traore, New York) and Atong Atem’s luminous reinterpretations of identity (MARS, Melbourne), the section affirms the vitality of global photography. French voices such as Marine Lanier, Bérangère Fromont, and Chloé Azzopardi echo this momentum, revealing the diverse forms of storytelling that define contemporary practice.
6. Browse the Éditions and join the Book Talks
Books remain a vital part of Paris Photo’s identity. The Éditions section brings together 43 publishers from 17 countries, including MACK, Aperture, delpire & co, and Atelier EXB. Over 400 artist signings will turn the upper galleries into a space of exchange and discovery. New this year, Book Talks — co-organized with Printed Matter — hosts daily discussions on the art of the photobook. Editors, artists, and curators will question its evolution as both object and idea, tracing how photography continues to reinvent the printed page.
7. Follow the Elles × Paris Photo trail
Created with the French Ministry of Culture, Elles × Paris Photo celebrates the growing visibility of women photographers — from 20% representation in 2018 to 39% in 2025. Curated by Devrim Bayar, this year’s edition examines the dialogue between figure and setting, with photographs by Letizia Battaglia, Marie-Laure de Decker, Dora Maar, Julia Margaret Cameron, Gabriele Stötzer, Sabiha Cimen, Sibylle Bergemann, Graciela Iturbide, Claudia Andujar, Eve Arnold ou encore Myriam Boulos. The works of Ming Smith, Carmen Winant, Agnès Varda, and Huda Takriti explore visibility, memory, and the performative nature of looking. “An image,” Bayar notes, “is never neutral — it carries the presence of those who made it, and those who are seen.”
8. Visit “The Last Photo” — the Estrellita B. Brodsky Collection
Presented for the first time in Europe, “The Last Photo” brings together over 60 works from the Estrellita B. Brodsky Collection of Latin American art. Curated by José Esparza Chong Cuy and Marie Perennès, the exhibition features Diane Arbus, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Vik Muniz, and Rosângela Rennó, whose eponymous work lends the show its title. Through photography, video, and print, the exhibition reflects on the fragility of the image — from analog permanence to digital transience.
9. Attend the conversations and the book awards
Throughout the week, Paris Photo’s Conversations program brings together artists, scholars, and writers. Highlights include an exchange between Laure Adler and Sophie Ristelhueber, a Sorbonne seminar led by Michel Poivert, and readings by Carmen Winant and Martine Gutierrez. The Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards will once again honor the best books of the year, a moment Florence Bourgeois describes as “a celebration of what binds artists and readers — the printed image as testimony and memory.” The winners will be announced on November 14 — a highlight for collectors and editors alike.
10. Experience the partner exhibitions at Paris Photo and across Paris
Beyond the fair itself, the city becomes a vast extension of Paris Photo. The MUUS Collection presents “Looking Out, Looking In” with works by Lisette Model, Larry Fink, and Rosalind Fox Solomon. Photo Elysée unveils Hannah Darabi’s project “Why Don’t You Dance?”. Chloé, BMW, and Belmond offer commissions where fashion, craft, and memory meet. The Carte Blanche program with SNCF Gares & Connexions extends into Gare de Lyon, showcasing four emerging photographers selected from more than six hundred applicants.
With its five sectors and a constellation of voices, Paris Photo 2025 once again captures the energy of an art in constant reinvention, alongside offering the possibility to buy one’s favorite prints. As Anna Planas notes, “Photography is an open medium — it holds the past and anticipates the future.” From Sophie Ristelhueber’s monumental walls to Gauri Gill’s fragile landscapes and the fresh perspectives of a new generation, the fair invites us to look closer — and to imagine how the world might still be seen.
More information on Paris Photo here.
