6 Photographers Pushing Boundaries Of Photography At Paris Photo
Paris Photo, the leading international art fair devoted to the photographic medium, was founded in 1997 and is now in its 27th edition. An important annual date on the Parisian cultural calendar, Paris Photo brings together some of the best French and international photographic galleries and publishers. It's a great place to see vintage and classic photography and to discover upcoming and emerging photographers. Paris Photo returned to the newly restored Grand Palais in Paris from November 7 to 10, 2024.
Here is an introduction to six photographers that stood out for me at Paris Photo 2024 for their exploration and progression of the photographic medium: Roberto Huarcaya, Lucas Leffler, Haji Oh, Sakiko Nomura, Nicolas Floc'h and Lucia Koch.
Roberto Huarcaya
Peruvian artist Roberto Huarcaya presented his monumental Amazogramas (2014-2024) series at Paris Photo with Rolf Art. The series is also on view at the Peruvian Pavilion in La Biennale di Venezia until 24th November.
Roberto Huarcaya (b.1959, Peru) is a distinguished figure on the Latin American art scene and a leading light of contemporary Peruvian photography. His ambitious Amazogramas photogram was created at night in the Amazonas rainforest when he unrolled a 30m length of photosensitive paper in the dense foliage and exposed it to moonlight to capture an impression of the jungle. He fixed the images on-site in the jungle in a rudimentary darkroom with water from the rivers, making sure to carefully dispose of any wastewater from the photographic process in Lima. His breathtaking photogram is exhibited at Paris Photo and captures the essence of the Amazonian jungle from an anthropological perspective, while his groundbreaking oeuvre merges photographic techniques with land art and installation.
Lucas Leffler
Lucas Lefler (b. 1993, Belgium) is an emerging photographer exploring the possibilities of photography through vintage techniques with a contemporary lens and sense of environmental responsibility. At Paris Photo he exhibited his 'Implosion' and 'Mudprint' series with Intervalle gallery, commenting on wastage created by the photographic industry and combining the 19th Century wet collodion technique with unusual materials such as mud.
His 'Mudprint' works were inspired by the discovery two men, almost a century ago, of silver in the mud of a small stream near Antwerp in Belgium. This discovery led to a new business until a nearby photography factory discovered they dumped large amounts of silver in the creek and started to be more careful with disposal of their waste. The name 'Silver Creek' remained but that was an end to the business.
Lucas Leffler made the 'Mudprint' works with mud that he took back from the present day 'Silver Creek', creating from it a light-sensitive emulsion that he used to create photo prints in a darkroom. Leffler uses archival research, photographic traces, and experimental image production to question the photographic industry's ecological footprint.
Through his 'Implosion' series he tells the story of the Kodak company's downfall as result of digital photography. He focuses on the year 2007 when Apple launched the first iPhone which soon led to the industrial collapse of Kodak. He takes archival images from YouTube videos describing Kodak's collapse and prints them on iPhone screens using the wet collodion technique, a 19th Century photographic process involving a 'wet' emulsion process.
Haji Oh
Haji Oh presented the 'Grand-Mother Island Project' at Paris Photo with Melbourne gallery 'This is No Fantasy'. Haji Oh was born and raised in Japan and is a third-generation Zainichi Korean and winner of the 2024 Tokyo Contemporary Art Award 2024. She now lives in Wollongong, Australia.
Oh creates delicately hand-woven woven textiles and combines them with photographic techniques and cyanotype to explore notions of complexities of heritage, history and identity. Through her delicate and intellectual practice, she creates enigmatic installations that infuse traditional textile techniques with a sense of memory and pushes the boundaries of conventional photography. Oh migrated to Australia in 2017 and started work on her 'Grand-Mother Island Project', which she presented at Paris Photo. Through the project she explores the importance of intergenerational storytelling as a means of interpreting history, referring to migration and generational experiences of trauma. Her intimate work involves labour intensive processes including dyeing, hand-weaving, printing and unravelling, and has a ritualistic aspect with a deep sense of reverence to her ancestors.
Sakiko Nomura
Japanese photographer Sakiko Nomura revealed her 'Träumerei' series for the first time outside of Japan at Paris Photo. The presentation by Galerie Écho 119 featured a series of enchanting monochrome and colour diptychs capturing dreamy images. Imagine a sea lion appearing to float skywards in a windowpane, or a sleepy woman falling into reverie in an anonymous hotel room. Nomura combines surrealism with chiaroscuro and an ability to transform the everyday into something otherworldly through her lens.
Sakiko Nomura (b. 1967, Yamaguchi, Japan) employs an unusual technique by creating images where the negative has been eaten away by mould, resulting in random patterns that transport the viewer to a dream-like state. 'Traumerei' (German for 'dream' or 'reverie') is also the title of German composer Robert Schumann's soothing piano score.
Nomura combines travel souvenirs and intimate moments with fragments of memories to create ambigious, timeless images that offer a blank canvas for the imagination to run wild.
Nicolas Floc'h
Photographer and visual artist Nicolas Floc'h presented his 'Fleuves Océans' and 'Paysages productifs' series at Paris Photo, following an exhibition at Les Rencontres d'Arles. Born in 1970 in Rennes. Nicolas Floc'h uses film, installation, performance, photography and sculpture in his multi-disciplinary practice, and explores concepts of transition, disappearance and regeneration. He combines an environmentally conscious approach with a scientific mind and a photographer's lens, following the path of water in river watersheds in search of color. He photographs water beneath the surface and captures its nuances.
His presentation at Paris Photo with Galerie Maubert was the latest stage of a decade-long body of work focused on the representation of underwater habitats and environments. He has created a documentary photographic production linked to global change and is slowly redefining the concept of underwater landscapes. His experimental approach combines scientific research and an interest in the evolutionary process.
He creates black-and-white photographs taken in natural light and carbon printed, and 'watercolors' that re-enact monochrome painting whilst acting as a record of the rapidly declining health of the world's oceans. His 'Fleuves Océan' series is based on color points of water and offers a visual immersion into the American landscape, the water cycle and the landscape of color.
Lucia Koch
Brazilian artist Lucia Koch manages to make packaging, the most mundane of objects, into visually stunning images through her surreal lens. Koch's eye-catching images fuse an interest in architecture and its interaction with space, with an ability to create something sublime from mundanity. Lucia Koch (b.1966, Porto Alegre, Brazil) presented a series of large-scale images of cardboard boxes elevated to an art form at Paris Photo with Carlier | gebauer gallery. Her large-scale images of the insides of empty cardboard boxes displayed at Paris Photo spoke to the grandiose architecture of the 19th Century Grand Palais, creating a dialogue between past and present, and proposing a new way of seeing.
By creating imaginary spaces from banal objects, Koch manages to reorient our perception and places as much importance on negative spaces as positive ones. Koch works with a variety of media including Installations, photographs and videos in her mission to investigate matters of space and propose new relations of scale and materiality. She has been photographing the interiors of empty cardboard boxes and packaging since 2001, and her unorthodox approach and unusual subject matter combines architectural research with photographic techniques using light filters and an exploration of lighting and its chromatic effects.
