Elles x Paris Photo: 5 female artists who are shaking up the codes of photography

“Highlight the plurality of paths taken by women artists”. This is the objective of Raphaëlle Stopindirector of the Rouen Normandie Photographic Center and former artistic director of the Hyères festival. This year it was up to her to imagine the Elles x Paris Photo course, a program dedicated to female artists carried out in partnership with the Ministry of Culture and with the support of Women In Motiona Kering program to highlight women in arts and culture. It is thanks to this same program that the representation of women artists at the fair has increased significantly since 2018, going from 20% to 38%.

With an emphasis on a furious quest for freedom, essential in the current geo-political context, where misogynistic and violent men are constantly led to the gates of power through the ballot boxes, Paris Photo unveils a demanding selection of artists at plural backgrounds, from different generations. “There was then the desire to pay particular attention to the photographers who developed their works in the post-war period and the following decades, so as not to deprive previous generations of this new attention, those who suffered the most from this omission. of history in the face of the artistic contribution of women” declares Raphaëlle Stopin. The result is a fresco of 44 women, or 44 disparate stories and memories, like a nebula of female experiences which takes place within the confines of the Grand Palais. French Vogue has selected five favorites not to be missed during the fair, which will take place from November 7 to 10, 2024.

Frida Orupabo, the dismembered bodies (STEVENSON)

There is something fascinating, almost as much as frightening, in the work of Frida OrupaboNorwegian-Nigerian artist based in Oslo. His prototype work? Human-scale collages of black bodies, often in black and white, reminiscent in certain respects of Mexican surrealist collages (like those of Lola Alvarez Bravo) or the works resulting from the Dada movement in France. These works are born on the Internet, at the crossroads of sites like Ebay, Tumblr or Google, which allow the artist and visual artist to encounter an infinity of unusual images that they steal without regard. Through his gaze, they come back to life, in collages inspired by vintage horror films or pin-ups from the 1950s and 1960s. The result is a certain reflection on the notion of position and performance – the models of Frida Orupabo are sometimes free, sometimes imprisoned by their own members. Sometimes, these collages emancipate themselves from the wall to become sculptures and fully occupy the space. A way, for someone who is also a sociologist, to question the notions of gender, sexuality and even violence, through her disarticulated bodies, as if to denounce the brutality suffered by the bodies of women, and especially black women.