Art Fairs
Paris Photo Los Angeles Is Set to Have Its Best Year Yet—See Why
Photography visits the city of the silver screen for its third year.
Cait Munro
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Opening May 1, Paris Photo Los Angeles is back for its third consecutive year at Paramount Pictures Studios, bringing the best photography from around the world to the city of the silver screen. With 80 galleries from 17 countries, it’s a shutterbug’s paradise (see Paris Photo LA Taps the West Coast’s Emerging Art Market).
Unlike larger, less specialized fairs where gallerists often choose to feature a single artist, most of the galleries showing at Paris Photo are bringing works from an assortment of the photographers in their stable. Of course, for those that exclusively deal in photography, it’s a tougher choice.
Catherine Edelman, who operates an eponymous contemporary photography gallery in Chicago, is hoping to introduce a cadre of artists, including Daniel Beltra, Ysabel LeMay, Floriane de Lassee, Sandro Miller (see John Malkovich Impersonates Celebrities for Portrait Show) and Jess T. Dugan, to Los Angeles, where most of them yet have to show. But to be safe, she’s also bringing pieces by Gregory Scott, whose work riffs on the personas of canonical painters, and whose photographs have sold well for her at the fair in previous years.
Edelman has been a supporter of Paris Photo from the start. “I always believe it’s best to show support for a new fair. Each year, the organizers have improved upon the last, making it a great experience for the dealers and collectors,” she told artnet News in an email.
Flowers Gallery, which operates in New York and London and shows a breadth of contemporary art, presented a solo booth of works by Mona Kuhn last year, but has opted to go the group route for their second turn at the fair. They will show recent works by Boomoon, Shen Wei, Nadav Kander, and Kuhn, all of which were exhibited at the gallery within the past year. A separate installation at the fair will feature experimental photographer Lorenzo Vitturi‘s Dalston Anatomy, which “[inhabits] the intersection between the sculptural and the photographic…[examining] the environment of East London’s Ridley Road Market through a series of portraits and still life photographs,” according to photography director Chris Littlewood.
Garis & Hahn, another New York-based contemporary art space, will showcase photographer and filmmaker Julien Levy‘s photographs, some of which are so small they must be viewed through magnifying glasses. Others are taken using damaged film that distorts the image.
“He captures the loneliness of cities and quiet moments on damaged film,” said director Mary Garis by email. “I think it is really accessible for the Instagram generation—the seemingly “filtered” images that are obstructed or cropped in interesting ways. He seemed like a natural fit for this fair, because his works are dark but also very sensuous and appealing—kind of like Hollywood itself.”
Garis said that she and her partner Sophie Hahn were drawn to the fair after the buzz it generated last year, and because it seemed accessible for both dealers and emerging collectors.
“The L.A. art scene has been a topic of much discussion in recent years, but the market is still more isolated than you might find in New York, Miami, or Europe,” said Garis. “It seems like a city ripe for client cultivation and it does have a very large, mostly artist-driven arts community…Paris Photo seemed to be the [L.A.-based] fair most people were talking about last year.”
While the market for photography can be unpredictable, like the rest of the art market, it’s currently experiencing a major boom (see Sotheby’s Sets New World Record for Photography Auction), as is the local art scene, setting the fair up to have its best year yet.
Paris Photo Los Angeles takes place from May 1–3 at Paramount Pictures Studios.
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