Paris Photo returns to the Grand Palais for its 29th edition

By Grace Kim

Paris Photo returns to the Grand Palais in Paris from 12 to 15 November 2026 for its 29th edition. Florence Bourgeois directs the fair, with Anna Planas responsible for artistic direction. The Centre Pompidou will be the guest of honour, and its collection will form part of the programme. These facts define the institutional scale of a fair built around the image market.

What changes for the 29th edition?

Photography's bicentenary supplies the 2026 theme. That anniversary gives the fair a clear historical frame, but not a single historical argument. The programme must place a museum collection beside display, publishing and trade.

Organisers describe Paris Photo as a leading international fair dedicated to photography. Its six sectors are:

• Main
• Prismes
• Voices
• Digital
• Emergence
• Editions

Major names, emerging scenes and book publishers sit within this structure. In the organisers’ description, the nave becomes “the meeting point for the global image market” for four days.

This structure preserves the fair's commercial function without pretending that a sales floor, a publishing stand and a museum exhibition form the same cultural proposition.

The fair offers one historic occasion through six routes into the market.

What does “Révéler” reveal?

The Centre Pompidou's contribution, “Révéler” (“Reveal”), will present around 100 works by some 30 historical and contemporary artists. A short Bicentennial trail will wind through the booths. The arrangement places a museum-led selection inside the commercial architecture of the fair.

Set within a commercial fair, the museum selection can make historical photography part of the visitor's present encounter rather than a sealed academic category alone.

The trail also changes how the exhibition is likely to be encountered. Visitors may meet individual works in sequence, rather than as one self-contained museum presentation. That method can connect a bicentenary survey to the commercial and publishing activity around it.

However, the announcement names no participating artists and lists no individual works. It therefore gives scale without offering a curatorial map. The distinction matters for judgement: a museum selection can broaden a market audience, but its historical argument cannot yet be assessed.

The museum partnership brings scale, but its critical argument is not yet clear.

What does “Elles × Paris Photo” add?

“Elles × Paris Photo” will run in partnership with the Ministry of Culture. Aldeide Delgado curates the project, which highlights women artists and their place in the history of photography.

Supported by the Ministry of Culture, the project gives institutional backing to an account of representation while remaining embedded within a fair structured around market exchange.

The project adds a curatorial layer rather than a seventh sector. The announcement still names six divisions, with “Elles × Paris Photo” operating as a focused programme within the wider fair. This distinction keeps its purpose clear. Its subject is not simply female participation in a large anniversary. It also concerns how photography's history has recorded that participation.

Beside the Centre Pompidou, the project narrows the anniversary's focus to representation and the recorded history of photography.

The project treats representation as a curatorial question, not a slogan.

Which talks and prizes accompany the fair?

Public programming runs across all four days. The programme lists Conversations, book talks and signing sessions. Two prizes form part of that schedule:

• Paris Photo-Aperture Book Prize
• Student Prize

The combination of talks, signings, a book prize and a student prize extends the event's authority beyond display and into interpretation, recognition and the next generation of practice.

Book publishing has a formal place in the event, through both the Editions sector and the dedicated prize. The programme joins exhibitions, publishing, prizes and public discussion. It recognises that a fair can do more than present work for sale.

The programme reaches beyond sales into discussion, prizes and publishing.

When and where can visitors go?

Paris Photo runs at the Grand Palais, Avenue Winston-Churchill, 75008 Paris. Directions list Champs-Élysées-Clemenceau metro station, on lines 1 and 13. Opening hours are 1 p.m. to 8 p.m., with Sunday closing at 7 p.m.

The timed schedule and nearby metro access make a concentrated four-day visit possible, with exhibitions, talks, book talks, signings and prize events sharing the same programme.

A selection of other bicentennial exhibitions in Paris broadens the anniversary beyond the Grand Palais. The programme still lacks artist names, individual works and session details. Visitors can plan the dates and venue now.

Further announcements will show how the museum and the image market occupy the same floor in 2026.