In Circulation: Polish Galleries & Publishers at Paris Photo 2025
Poland’s presence was clear, albeit scattered, across the vast space of the Paris art fair. Amidst the stands of Jednostka, lokal_30, Monopol, Raster and Blow Up Press, a narrative unfolded about how Polish artists work with images – personal, social and historical. This polyphony demonstrated the diversity of practices and the maturity of the Polish photography scene today.
This year's Paris Photo fair, 13-15 November at the Grand Palais, was once again a place where visitors could come to see the changes taking place in the global circulation of photography. At such a large scale – with 139 galleries in the main sector and 43 publishers in the book sector – it was impossible to follow a single, predetermined path through the event. Participants therefore chose their own routes to admire the abundance of works and converse. This vibrant scene composed of exhibitions, stands and thousands of viewers, artists and gallery owners could be admired from the mezzanine of the spectacular Grand Palais.
A book: a medium for a photograph
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Paris Photo 2025, Grand Palais, Paris, photo: M. Dąbrowski
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A clearly visible trend at this year’s edition was the photobook. Photobooks were what everyone was focussing on. In the publishing section, it was obvious that it was a tool for negotiating meaning so different from the rhythmic viewing of printed photos and prints on the walls.
A book is a medium which enables a more peaceful and deeper immersion into a project – it always for a longer audience with the author, a more attentive look at each page. It slows down the reception and strengthens the relationship between the creator and the viewer. Besides, there is no point in hiding it – it is also definitely cheaper than a collector's print or printout. The crowds gathering on the mezzanine of the Grand Palais, where the photographic publications were located, were proof of their growing popularity. The Polycopies art publication fair, held at the same time as Paris Photo, only reinforced this impression.
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"Homesick New York” by Michael Ackerman, photo: Blow Up Press
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This engagement was also influenced by the presence of many of the artists at the fair – walking between the stands, I passed people with significant names in the world of photography, including Mark Power, Jungjin Lee and Pentti Sammallahti. At the stand of the Polish publishing house Blow Up Press alone, more than a dozen authors were signing their books. Among them, the new publication by Michael Ackerman, a middle-generation artist with a recognisable style and body of work, attracted the most interest. His book Homesick New York – a kind of meditation on memory and the search for one's place in the world – was designed as a leporello, or a 28-metre-long accordion. Another distinctive feature of his publication was the use of test strips – photographic remnants of the printing process, left for weeks in chemical solutions. After drying, they bear traces of decomposition and transformation, echoes of the original image. These fragments were pasted in by hand after the book was printed.
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"Once A Year The Stick Shoots” by Nastasiia Leliuk & Natalia Wiernik, photo: Blow Up Press
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Another interesting experience, yet entirely different from the previous one, was discovering the once a year the stick shoots book by young artists Nastasia Leliuk and Natalia Wiernik. Different – because here we were dealing with a publication by artists who are still developing their photographic language. The photographers jointly examined how the war in Ukraine shapes the perception of images, language and symbols. A simple but meaningful gesture by the book’s designer, Aneta Kowalczyk, is a single hole piercing the entire publication – like a bullet passing through. This symbolic act of violence is not only recorded in the photographs – it is part of the physical form of the book. In the text describing the book, the publisher states that Leliuk and Wiernik's project fits into what American art critic Hal Foster has described as traumatic realism – attempts to symbolically convey trauma that eludes representation.
There was also a noticeable increase in the importance of collector's editions and book experiments that were close to art objects – for many artists and publishers, Paris Photo was not only a place to sell, but also an opportunity to test how the public would react to less typical forms of publication. Among the dozen or so publishers, Blow Up Press and Japanese publishing houses led the way.
Japanese photography
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Works by Rinko Kawauchi, photo: M. Dąbrowski
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The extensive representation of Japanese photography was definitely one of the most visible trends in the programme. Attention was drawn both to the work of classics from the 1960s and 1970s, including Masahisa Fukase and Takuma Nakahira, as well as newer projects by Masao Yamamoto and Rinko Kawauchi.
Two parallel tendencies were visible: a return to historical materials, including photographs related to the Provoke movement, as well as copies of books and magazines from years ago, but also new interpretations of the aesthetics of silence and transience, so strongly associated with contemporary Japanese photography. It was clear that for many galleries and audiences, this area continues to be an important cultural and visual reference point.
Polish strategies of presence
The Polish representation, consisting of four galleries and a publishing house, created a cross-sectional picture of how photography functions in our artistic circulation. Each institution showcased their work differently: from archival typologies, through conceptual projects, to politically engaged collages and material experiments. As a result, the Polish presence did not form a uniform aesthetic block, but rather a set of strategies responding to the diverse needs of contemporary audiences.
Jednostka: between classic and contemporary
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Jednostka Gallery and lokal_30 Gallery's stands, photo: Jednostka
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The Jednostka Gallery presented works by Wojciech Plewiński and Marta Zgierska, as well as a special edition of Weronika Gęsicka's new Encyclopaedia. The programme combined archival material with contemporary photography. The stand served as a place for discussions with the public about editorial practices, the history of photography and the role of books in building artists' visibility.
Katarzyna Sagatowska, curator and founder of Jednostka, noted:
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The audience was very diverse. In the morning, collectors and curators appeared, viewing everything attentively and methodically. In the afternoons and evenings, photography enthusiasts came – often people who had finished work and dropped by the fair on their way home. Some of them knew us, but for many we were a discovery. Wojciech Plewiński aroused great interest. His position in Poland is obvious, but in France he is only just beginning to be recognised. The bilingual book prepared with MuFo [the Museum of Photography in Kraków] proved to be a good tool for us, as most of the works presented at the fair were included in it. Fairs are not just about sales – often the most important things happen later. Last year, thanks to Paris Photo, Weronika Gęsicka was invited to Arles and noticed by the organisers of the Deutsche Börse photography competition.
Lokal_30: political images and subject matter
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"Birds in Gaza IV” by Joanna Rajkowska, 2024, photo: lokal_30
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The Lokal_30 Gallery presented a set of projects that shared a reflection on history, crisis, and social change. Zuzanna Janin's works from the 1980s, Joanna Rajkowska's collages referring to the situation in Gaza, and Diana Lelonek's cyanotypes of glaciers functioned as three different answers to the question of how art can comment on reality without losing its own formal structure.
Joanna Rajkowska said in a recording for the Adam Mickiewicz Institute's social media:
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The works presented at Paris Photo were selected by Agnieszka Rayzacher, curator of the lokal_30 gallery. Birds in Gas is a direct successor to the Five Corners Square project . The element connecting these two cycles is bird eyes or the bird's eye, which is a silent witness to history. In a sense, it is not so much an understanding witness as an involuntary witness, forced to witness. I wanted to emphasise this element very strongly, that the tragedies that happen in the world, and of which we are very often the perpetrators, affect both humans and non-humans.
Monopol: archives as a tool for analysing reality
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"Windows - New York” by Maria Michałowska, 1976, photo: Monopol Gallery
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Monopol focused on Maria Michałowska's photographs from the 1970s: the projects Topography of Landscape and Morphology of Landscape. Both series are part of the tradition of conceptual photography and typology, which allowed the artist to explore the relationships between nature, architecture and ways of seeing. Unlike the programmes of other galleries presenting archives, Michałowska's works precisely analyse the world rather than narrating it directly.
Raster: Nature as a platform for conflict and observation
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Works by Łukasz Rusznica, Zofia Rydet, Aneta Grzeszykowska and Krzysztof Pruszkowski (on the table), photo: Raster
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Raster's presentation concerned the transitions between the human environment and the natural environment, covering both historical works (Zofia Rydet, Krzysztof Pruszkowski) and contemporary ones (including Aneta Grzeszykowska, Michał Łuczak, Łukasz Rusznica). This set raised questions about the Anthropocene, the ecological crisis, but also about the way photography describes processes of decay, stratification and transformation.
Michał Łuczak described his work as follows:
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The works I presented in Paris come from my latest series of photographs entitled 'Habitat' and, geographically speaking, concern the Warsaw section of the Vistula River, especially the right bank, where I walk at night with my camera and look for so-called wild animals. I try to capture them in the broader context of nature, which is part of Poland's largest city, which is a kind of paradox.
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Works by Michał Łuczak and Krzysztof Pruszkowski, photo: Raster
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Łukasz Rusznica, who presented three works from his series All Empires Will Fall at the Raster stand, was also present at the Polycopies fair as a publisher (Sun Archive Books). In an interview with Culture.pl, he shared his impressions:
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It's still difficult for me to talk about this experience because I'm still “digesting” it. It was intense, layered with fatigue, but also full of hope, fantasies of “success” and all those emotions that are an integral part of such situations. However, when I try to sum it up, I realise above all how lucky I am – that someone trusted me, that I found myself surrounded by people I like and respect. I also think about Paris Photo through the prism of the exhibition prepared by Łukasz Gorczyca [co-founder of Galeria Raster – ed.]. Because the Raster stand could be treated not only as a presentation, but also as a kind of micro-exhibition – and I really liked that.
It was also a great joy to meet other Poles present at the fair – we kept bumping into each other and there was something beautiful about it. We were all happy to see each other and felt that our shared presence was important, that we were there together. In such a place, far from everyday life, it suddenly becomes more apparent that we are a community.
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Part of the Blow Up Press stand, photo: BUP
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The first Polish publisher invited to participate in this prestigious event was responsible for the aforementioned premiere of Michael Ackerman's book at the Grand Palais. Alongside it were collector's editions of renowned titles: Deceitful Reverence by Igor Pisuk, Swell by Mateusz Sarełło, Land by Lorenzo Castore and Undertow by Damien Daufresne, as well as Encyclopaedia by Weronika Gęsicka, Est et non est by Paweł Żak, Eternal U by Hubert Humka, once a year the stick shoots by Natalia Wiernik and Nastasia Leliuk, and viridescent, afire by Małgorzata Stankiewicz. Meetings with the authors were held every day of the fair.
Blow Up Press's presence at Paris Photo is the next stage in a consistently developed publishing programme that has been promoting personal photography for years, often emotionally engaging and told in a form refined down to the smallest detail. As the founders of the publishing house, Grzegorz Kosmala and Aneta Kowalczyk, said in an interview for Culture.pl before the Paris event:
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Our mission has remained the same from the very beginning. Our motto is: when the story matters. Whether it's a magazine or a monograph, we look for inspiring, thought-provoking stories that tell us about the contemporary world, people and the challenges they face.
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Paris Photo 2025, Grand Palais, Paris, photo: Kuba Celej / IAM
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The Paris Photo 2025 fair was not only a review of current and historical photography. It was a space in which one could observe the in-and-outs of the international circulation of art – functioning in its own rhythm, with its own relationships and style of negotiations. Polish galleries and publishers showed that they are full-fledged participants in the conversation: aware, prepared and present in most key fields.
If anything distinguished Poland's presence in Paris this year, it was its ability to conduct discussions on many levels, both semantic and formal. This multi-threaded approach best demonstrated how Polish photography functions on the international scene today – not as an exception, but as an equal player on the global playing field.