Peter Hujar, Man on chair (Richard Weinroth). Courtesy of the artist and Fraenkel Gallery

It says something about the state of photography today that one of the exhibitors at this year’s Paris Photo has never owned a camera. Five months ago, Kristi Coronado created Solienne, an artificial intelligence agent that produced Genesis, a series of black-and-white portraits in the Digital Sector of the photography fair. Coronado is not a photographer, but then again, she doesn’t consider herself the maker of the Genesis portraits. “I’m the trainer,” she stressed. “Solienne is the artist.” It was an eerie look into the future of the image, but the fair was interested in exhibiting all aspects of photography: from its 19th-century innovators to the radical artists working today. If there’s a place where one can look at a Julia Margaret Cameron albumen print from 1872 and a synthetic portrait made by an A.I. agent under the same roof, it’s Paris Photo.

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Attracting photography lovers from around the world, Paris Photo is first and foremost a trade fair. Situated in the Grand Palais, the fair returned this year for its 28th edition, exhibiting 178 galleries from around the world. Serious buyers will spend thousands on prints from blue-chip galleries. (The major sales are usually done early during the first or second day.) But it’s not just wealthy collectors who attend Paris Photo. Last year, 81,000 people visited the fair, and this year it felt just as popular. Walking through the Main Sector, which takes up most of the Grand Palais, one encounters works by the canonical names of photography: Cindy Sherman, Albert Watson, Joel Meyerowitz, Steve McCurry, Marie-Laure de Decker, Peter Hujar, Gordon Parks and

© Observer