From May 7th to 10th, 2026, the 11th edition of PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai will be held at the Shanghai Exhibition Center. As an international platform dedicated to the medium of photographic art, this year’s fair will bring together outstanding galleries and photographic institutions from both China and abroad, continuing to advance the exhibition, exchange, and collection of photographic art.
This year’s “Expert Committee” is composed of renowned scholars, curators, and institutional representatives in the field of photographic art. Through regular activities such as curation, seminars, and visits, the committee will contribute to the discovery of value in photographic art and collaboratively shape future content trends.
2026 Expert Committee
Clothilde Morette | Artistic Director, Maison Européenne de la Photographie
Gwen Lee | Co-founder & Executive Director, DECK Photography Art Centre
He Yining | Researcher and Curator of visual arts
Hyunjung Son | Curator, Seoul Museum of Art Photography
RongRong | Photographer & Co-founder, Three Shadows Photography Art Centre
Shi Hantao | Independent Curator and Writer
Scott Gray | CEO, Creo & Angus Montgomery Arts
The “Collectors Committee” consists of experienced collectors of photographic art, aiming to establish an open and interconnected platform for collection exchange. Through activities such as collection appreciation, dialogues on collecting, and institutional visits, the committee will facilitate experience sharing and collaboration among collectors, enhance the professionalism and continuity of collecting, and jointly foster a healthy ecosystem for photographic art collection.
2026 Collectors’ Committee
Cao Jixiang | Co-founder, Cuishe Yunji
Che Xuanqiao | Founder, MACA Art Center
Jin Hongwei | President, SIPA Press
Jiao Jingjia | Founder, Art Space "Dongtong Caiyuan"
Shao Zhong | Founder, Chairman & CEO, Super Media Group
At the beginning of 2026, we have received selections from some committee members, who, from their own perspectives, have highlighted artists, exhibitions, and books from the past year that left a lasting impression. These observations and insights from academia and the forefront of collecting aim to offer more diverse artistic insights and trend indicators for all.
*The order of the committee members is arranged by the first letter of their names
Recommendor: Clothilde Morette | Artistic Director, Maison Européenne de la Photographie
Artist of the year: Melissa Shook
© Melissa Shook， "March 27, 1973" from the Daily Self-Portraits，1972-1973。cr：Miyako Yoshinaga
Melissa Shook was an American artist, born in 1939 and passed away in 2020. She is best known for her extensive series of black-and-white self-portraits, while also dedicating a significant part of her practice to portraying people living on the margins of society—including the homeless, the elderly, and others often excluded from mainstream narratives. Her work also deeply explores family, intimacy, and the ways in which personal relationships are represented and reconstructed. This year, Miyako Yoshinaga gallery exhibited several of her large-format Polaroid works from the 1980s, which are absolutely stunning. In these works, the artist invited her parents, daughter, and a close friend to appear. These images reveal a gentle, complex, and quietly radical approach to portraiture, whose resonance remains palpable today.
Exhibition of the year: Échos, Delay, Reverb
© “Échos, Delay, Reverb”, 2025 on site. Photo by：Aurélien Mole。Courtesy of the artist and Palais de Tokyo.
One of the most memorable exhibitions for me this year was “Échos, Delay, Reverb” at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. The exhibition is dedicated to exploring the influence of French theory, and broader French academic thought, on contemporary American artistic creation, bringing together nearly sixty artists across multiple creative practices. It addresses crucial issues shaping the international art scene today, including postcolonial perspectives, questions of gender and sexuality, and new critical narratives.
Publication of the Year: De Wallen, Amsterdam
Recommendor：He Yining | Researcher and Curator of visual arts
Artist of the year: Li Chang
©Li Chang,《Jing Zhong Die Diao》, 12 minutes and 45 seconds, Audio-visual Installation, 5.1 channels, 2024-2025.Image provided by the artist
Chinese artist Li Chang’s new work 《Jing Zhong Die Diao》 (2025) is a phased outcome of her four-year field research project 《Land Fragments》. The work focuses on the primeval tropical rainforest of Bawangling in Hainan, collaborating with ecologists from institutions such as the Zoological Society of London, Oxford University, and Cambridge University to explore the delicate balance between modern development models, ecological diversity, and indigenous cultures.
The imagery was entirely shot in the primeval forest at night, using ultralong light waves to capture bioluminescent effects invisible to the human eye. This fluorescent substance is widely present in the flora and fauna of the rainforest, and under the influence of abundant organic molecules and minimal light pollution in the environment, it manifests in dreamlike colors. Sound materials were recorded from the rainforest’s natural soundscapes across day and night, as well as songs and oral legends from Li ethnic villages, ultimately constructing an immersive experience interweaving vision and hearing.
The work is currently exhibited at the Guangdong Museum of Art’s “Guangzhou Image Triennial 2025,” on view until May 5, 2026.
Exhibition of the year- Noémie Goudal：The Story of Fixity
© “Noémie Goudal: The Story of Fixity”, 2025 on site
In November, I strolled from the bustling Borough Market to Borough Yards to see Noémie Goudal’s winter exhibition The Story of Fixity, presented by ArtAngel. This exhibition blends multiple media including painting, photography, and moving image, and is the artist’s most ambitious installation to date. It gathers countless “protagonists” to collectively narrate stories of nature, attempting to show how natural tales evolve across centuries.
Inside the exhibition space, water droplets slowly drip from the ceiling, even seeming to seep from the screens, eventually pooling into colored puddles at the viewers’ feet, creating an immersive atmosphere. Outside the gallery, raindrops interplay with the water in the installation, blurring the boundaries between nature and art, immersing one in an experience both real and surreal.
Publication of the Year- Guía del abandono: Paisajismo, paisaje, país
One artist’s book that impressed me is Guía del abandono: Paisajismo, paisaje, país (Abandonment Guide: Landscaping, Landscape, Country). Created by renowned Chilean architect Smiljan Radić and published by Puro Chile, this book—thick as a brick and exquisitely hand-bound—centers on themes of architecture, abandonment, and desertion. Through a series of critical texts and artistic projects, Radić presents his unique reflections on time, space, and memory. This is not merely a mapping of the Chilean landscape but a profound meditation on history, culture, and identity.
Recommendor: Hyunjung Son | Curator, Seoul Museum of Art Photography
Artist of the Year: Baek Jungki
© Baek Jungki, Is of: Mugunri Moss Waterfall，2023. Courtesy of the artist
Exhibition of the Year- Wolfgang Tillmans: Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us
© “Wolfgang Tillmans: Nothing could have prepared us – Everything could have prepared us”, 2025 on site. Photo by：Jens Ziehe. Courtesy of the Centre Pompidou and Artist
Wolfgang Tillmans’ exhibition at the Centre Pompidou transformed the entire second floor of the Bibliothèque publique d’information into a large-scale spatial experiment, presenting over three decades of his work without adhering to a traditional retrospective structure. Series such as “Paper Drop,” “Freischwimmer,” “Truth Study Center,” along with his early club culture photographs, engage in free dialogue within the library’s open architectural layout, blurring the boundaries between image, knowledge, and public space. Contrasts between large-scale prints and small photocopies or publications highlight Tillmans’ sensitivity to the weight and rhythm of images, while the incorporation of moving image, sound, and text extends the photographic experience beyond the frame. As the final exhibition before the Centre Pompidou’s major renovation, the project is particularly meaningful. It places the institution itself at a moment of transformation, prompting reflection on how spaces for art and knowledge continually reconstitute themselves.
Publication of the Year-aperture No.260: The Seoul Issue
Aperture magazine’s “Seoul Issue” (No.260) offers a concise yet far-reaching guide to contemporary Korean photography through a cross-generational selection of artists. Featuring established figures like Koo Bohnchang and Oh Heinkuhn, critical voices like Noh Suntag, and younger practitioners such as Hwang Yejin, Ahn Chorong, and Jung Heeseung, it traces how Seoul’s rapid urban transformation, emotional atmosphere, and political tensions have shaped diverse photographic languages. Rather than presenting a singular narrative, this special issue reveals a city producing multiple, sometimes contradictory, visual worlds—making it an invaluable resource for understanding the evolving landscape of Korean photography.
Jin Hongwei | President, SIPA Press
Artist of the Year: Zhang Xiao
©“Zhang Xiao: Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea", 2025 on site. Courtesy of the artist.
Zhang Xiao’s comprehensive exhibition “Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea” at the A4 Art Museum in Chengdu recently brought together video, sculpture, and installation, emphasizing narrative dialogues among different materials within the exhibition space and irony toward reality. The all-encompassing and expansive display method broke through his long-standing bottleneck of single-material presentations, marking another leap forward following his solo exhibition “Shehuo” at the Harvard University Art Museums several years ago.
Exhibition of the Year-Man Ray: When Objects Dream
© “Man Ray: When Objects Dream”, 2025 on site. Photo by：Anna-Marie Kellen. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The exhibition choice was particularly difficult for me, as I saw three exhibitions of similar caliber this year. In the end, I resolutely chose the major Man Ray retrospective curated by Jeff Rosenheim, Head of the Department of Photography at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The show featured the original of his world-record auction piece Le Violon d’Ingres ($12.4 million), in which Man Ray painted violin f-holes on a woman’s back, transforming the human body into an instrument, full of sensuality and surreal allure. The work “Glass Tears” also appeared in the exhibition, replacing real tears with glass beads to explore truth and falsehood, perfectly expressing beauty and sorrow.
Publication of the Year- Diane Arbus: Revelations
Revelations is the most important and authoritative comprehensive publication in Diane Arbus scholarship. It was initially published alongside the major retrospective that originated at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) in 2003–2006 and toured to Europe (including Arles, France, and London, UK).
Unlike earlier books that only showcased finished prints, this volume systematically discloses Arbus’s “working methods” for the first time, extensively presenting: contact sheets; working notes; cropping marks; and multiple versions of the same subject. Many misunderstand Arbus as “photographing freaks,” but this book clearly shows: she never hides her own presence; she does not pretend neutrality; she allows her subjects to look directly at the lens, directly at us. This book makes you realize that the unease comes from within ourselves, not from the people in the photographs.
Recommender: Jiao Jingjia | Director, Art Collection Space "East Tong Art Garden"
Artist of the Year: Micchael Najjar
© Micchael Najjar, Documentary "The Greenland Expedition" Still Frame, 2024.Image thanks: BANK
German artist Michael Najjar is a particular favorite of mine, and I especially love his works woven through the language of imagery. At the intersection of art, science, and technology, his practice involves critical ways in which complex and technological development define and profoundly alter the 21st century. Najjar has been exploring technology’s potential, fully undergoing astronaut training with the intention of flying into space to create his images. On Earth, he often exposes his body to extreme conditions, challenging human limits in natural settings—glaciers, ice caves, deserts, volcanoes, mountain peaks, and skyscrapers… I have collected his volcano and glacier works, viewing them in summer and winter respectively.
Exhibition of the Year- Yang Fudong: Xiang He
©“Yang Fudong: Xiang He”, 2025 on site. Courtesy of UCCA and Artist
On November 22, 2025, Yang Fudong’s major solo exhibition “Xiang He” at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art was an excellent template for understanding contemporary Chinese video art today. From content to form, and the artist’s unwavering dedication to art over thirty years, it was deeply moving. In one scene from the exhibited film, Yang Fudong listens to Beyond’s “Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies,” pensively reciting, “Take a step back, and there is boundless sky and sea.” A young man beside him asks, “Where to step back to?” Yang replies, “Stepping back is a mindset, a state.” Everyone falls silent, and I, too, am lost in thought…
Publication of the Year: Image & Color
These are two books that start from perceptual psychology, deducing the relationship between images, color, and the perceiver, and from a designer’s perspective, constructing the correct output methods for images and color. The conclusion is that the technical aspects of image composition and the correlation between color and emotional value are tools for us to understand pictorial expression.
Recommender: Shi Hantao | Independent Curator, Writer
Artist of the Year: Zhou Yulong
©Zhou Yulong, 《Tu Men Deng Yue》, 2024. Courtesy of the artist
Zhou Yulong excels at weaving fantasy. From the divine dragon appearing in the skies of Northeast China as “my mother told me when I was young,” to the pair of merchant who disappeared over the Bund in a hot-air balloon in 1936 mentioned in “the package my grandfather gave me before he passed away,” to a gold foil inscribed with Khitan script left by an old team leader in Inner Mongolia in the 1960s to “my father,” which transforms into a full moon rising from a dried well. The photographs are vivid, the text is earnest, and if that’s not enough, there are handcrafted letters, newspapers, balloons, and various vintage objects—you can’t help but believe. His professional work is commercial photography, having shot Olympic athletes and global celebrities, helping brands seduce consumption and boost the economy. In his art, he remains true to old habits, even more intensively, solely to make viewers in his knowingly fabricated stories doubt the correct history.
Exhibition of the Year- Luo Yongjin: Head South After Planting Wheat
©"Luo Yongjin: Head South After Planting Wheat", 2025 on site. Courtesy of the OFOTO＆ANART
Luo Yongjin invited over ten friends to use photographs to tell their own “yesterday, today, and tomorrow.” Each person has an old photo frame, densely packed with faces, moments, and places, locking in time from childhood to old age, even the grave. The most moving is a frame from an elder family friend, showing a journey from studying abroad and returning, to political re-education, to crossing oceans again—suits, military uniforms, casual wear. As an extension of the exhibition, the artist plans to invite more friends next year to be “catchers in the rye” in the fields and lanes near Jia Yi’s tomb on Mang Mountain. Locals say “going up Mang Mountain to see the wheat” means being neighbors with the dozens of emperors and generals buried there. The artist plans to photograph, write poetry, play music, and drink tea with everyone, from early autumn to midsummer—history is too short, life is long.
Publication of the Year- Xu Jie: Shanghai Hongmei
Dozens of seemingly old, blurred photographs, scores of plain yet intriguing stories. The stories begin with the rise and fall of China’s camera and film industry, moving to the encounters in the lives of anonymous individuals. These elements seem somewhat related yet hard to articulate, leaving one feeling the city is empty and people unsettled. These photographs were taken by the artist over the past decade in Shanghai using second-hand Hongmei cameras with expired Shanghai brand film. The mold spots on the film and shutter malfunctions cannot outweigh the absurdity in the scenes and the emptiness in the moments. It’s like using the original broth to digest the original meal, but these blurry images and rambling narratives seem unable to fully digest a city’s accumulated melancholy over more than a decade.
Recommender: Shao Zhong | Founder, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Supermedia Group
Artist of the Year: Andreas Gursky
© Andreas Gursky: Thomas Ruff，1984. Courtesy of the artist
As a benchmark of the Düsseldorf School, studying under Bernd and Hilla Becher, Andreas Gursky examines globalization with a calm and grand perspective. His auction-record-setting Rhein II perfectly illustrates his ability to distill reality through digital technology to create visual spectacles. Together with peers like Thomas Ruff and Candida Höfer, he forms an outstanding group that defines the pinnacle of contemporary photography. His work is an indispensable key to understanding contemporary social structures and aesthetics.
Exhibition of the Year: V&A East Storehouse
© V&A East Storehouse on site. Photo by: Hufton+Crow. Courtesy of the V&A East Storehouse
London’s V&A East Storehouse is most thought-provoking for its revolutionary “open storage” concept. It breaks down the boundaries between frontstage and backstage, presenting over 260,000 collection items—including tens of thousands of photographs, manuscripts, and other visual archives from the “David Bowie Centre”—alongside conservation labs and curatorial processes. Visitors navigate among shelves resembling massive art installations, granted unprecedented autonomous exploration rights. This is not just viewing exhibits but witnessing the anatomy and reconstruction of the “museum” itself—it invites everyone to consider: how should knowledge be preserved, accessed, and activated today? This may be redefining the form and mission of future public institutions.
As the Meta Media firmly believes: true innovation is the free reconstruction after a profound understanding of tradition and systems. The V&A East Storehouse uses cutting-edge curatorial concepts to activate profound collection resources, realizing “using the most advanced technology to engage with the deepest traditions.”
Publication of the Year: E.H. Gombrich: The Sense of Order
In the age of intelligence, “what aesthetics are worth pursuing” has become a profound cultural choice. This requires creators, like editors-in-chief, to possess systematic thinking that integrates science, aesthetics, and philosophy. Gombrich’s The Sense of Order provides an indispensable intellectual foundation for this. Although focused on decorative art, it reveals from psychological and biological origins the deep-seated human instinct to perceive order and create patterns—this “sense of order” is the hidden basis for understanding all visual constructions. The book’s insights connecting visual order with the temporal rhythms of music and poetry offer an extraordinary lens for all visual creators to examine forms and laws of harmony. It does not provide simple answers but grants us with the profound determination and clear context necessary for making complex value judgments.