SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- PHOTOFAIRS | San Francisco announced select galleries, exhibitions and public programming for its 2018 edition, alongside the work of cutting-edge artists who will be available for purchase for the first time on the West Coast.

Highlights include new works by artists Alec Soth (Weinstein Gallery, Minneapolis); the West Coast debut of French visual artist Noémie Goudal (Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris); a female-focused presentation featuring Ruth van Beek and Eva Stenram from The Ravestijn Gallery (Amsterdam). Mandy Barker (East Wing, Doha), Mishka Henner (Bruce Silverstein, New York) and Cuban artist Abelardo Morell (Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York & Zurich) will present works at the fair in addition to speaking in the Fair’s Conversations program.

The 2018 of PHOTOFAIRS | San Francisco will feature the debut of a roster of globally significant galleries including: Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve (Paris), Les Filles du Calvaire (Paris), Parrotta (Cologne), Rademakers Gallery (Amsterdam), SAGE (Paris) and Tang Feng Gallery (Miaoli City).

PHOTOFAIRS is committed to presenting work from both the Asian and Latin American markets at its San Francisco fair. Collectors will be introduced to new artists and galleries such as ShanghART Gallery (Beijing, Shanghai & Singapore) who will debut in San Francisco with works from important contemporary Chinese artists Birdhead, Chen Wei and Jiang Pengyi. Fellow Chinese artists Shen Wei (Flowers Gallery, New York & London), Luo Bonian, RongRong and Wang Wusheng (all Three Shadows + 3 Gallery, Beijing & Xiamen) will also be presented.

Pioneering Mexican artists Ricardo Nicolayevsky and Tania Franco-Klein will be presented for the first time in San Francisco by Almanaque (Mexico City). Collecting photography from Latin American countires will also be discussed in-depth by international curators as part of the Conversations talks program.

The 2018 public program will also include Insights, a curated exhibition of museum quality pieces available for private sale. Using the theme “The Poetry of Silence”, local West Coast artists Erica Deeman, John Chiara, Tammy Rae Carland and Klea McKenna will be presented alongside masters of the photographic medium including Ansel Adams, Irving Penn and Robert Mapplethorpe.

PHOTOFAIRS | San Francisco is the West Coast’s only art fair dedicated to the medium of photography. Running February 23-25, 2018 at the Fort Mason Center, First Look, the Fair’s opening night on Thursday, February 22, 2018 will benefit the photography program at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

2018 gallery highlights
• SAGE (Paris) will exhibit internationally celebrated contemporary artist Wolfgang Tillmans, iconic works from Andy Warhol’s photobooth series, Japanese artist Naoya Hatakeyama and Italian photographers Carlo Mollino, Mario Giacomelli, Paolo Gioli and Guido Guidi.

• German gallery Parrotta (Cologne) will place a focus on German artists exploring the landscape tradition through the eyes of artists Detlef Olopp and Margaret Hope.

• Robert Klein Gallery (Boston) will debut at PHOTOFAIRS | San Francisco with works by Iranian artist Gohar Dashti.

• Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve (Paris) will present works by Juergen Teller and Boris Mikhailov.

• PACE Gallery (New York, Palo Alto, London, Paris, Seoul & Beijing) will show works from artist Michal Rovner’s latest series, Night.

• Bruce Silverstein (New York) will exhibit works by Mishka Henner which explore the role of photography in the internet age.

• Weinstein Galllery (Minneapolis) will show works by Robert Mapplethorpe, Erik Madigan Heck, and debut new works by artist Alec Soth.

Insights: “The Poetry of Silence: Elegance, meditation & photography”
Curator Alexander Montague-Sparey, Artistic Director of PHOTOFAIRS, explains:"The Poetry of Silence offers once again the chance for collectors to analyse an important theme within the history of photography in a curated context. The show explores photography’s ability at creating self-contained worlds often intricately linked with an artist’s quest for finding the truth in the every day. Through a series of still lifes, portraits, seascapes and landscapes, the exhibition places a spotlight on photography’s ability at being quiet, calming and self-reflective”.

Montague-Sparey has worked in close collaboration with leading local galleries and their artists alongside fair galleries listed above. These include Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco (artists Matt Lipps & Tammy Rae Carland); Haines Gallery, San Francisco (artists John Chiara and Chris McCaw), Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco (artists Yamini Nayar & Eva Schlegel) and Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco (artist Erica Deeman). Leading names from the history of American photography such as Edward Weston, Robert Mapplethorpe, Harry Callahan and Stephen Shore will be placed alongside cutting-edge international names.

Conversations
PHOTOFAIRS’s talks program, Conversations, explores key themes regarding the international fine art photography market and offers collectors access to insight and artists via in-depth discussions.

Highlights include:

• Artist profile talks with Matt Lipps, Farrah Karapetian, Abelardo Morell and Mandy Barker.

• The Institutional Lens: Collecting Photography by Artists from Latin America with Sarah Meister, (Curator, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, New York); Shoair Mavlian, (Associate Curator of Photography, Tate Modern, London); Thyago Nogueira, (Curator, Instituto Moreira Salles, Sao Paulo); Idurre Alonso, (Associate Curator of Latin American Art, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles).

• Landscape Photography in a Time of Social Change with artists David Maisel and Christina Seely, moderated by curator Julian Cox (Chief Curator and Deputy Director, Art Gallery of Ontario).

• A discussion around video art with artists Zeina Barakeh, Monet Clark, Fernanda D’Agostino and Klea McKenna, moderated by the Fair’s Connected exhibition curator, Justin Hoover.

• A Public Agenda, a conversation with David Benjamin Sherry, Artist; Nion McEvoy, Collector; and Kevin Moore, Curator. Presented by FotoFocus Cincinnati.