The Phair 2026 brings fashion photography as contemporary work to Turin

Fashion photography as an artistic language, beyond the boundaries of publishing and commercial communication. This is one of the central themes of The Phair 2026, the international fair dedicated to photography and works of art created through the photographic medium, scheduled at OGR Turin May 22-24, 2026. Indeed, the seventh edition of the event identifies the relationship between image, fashion and visual culture as one of its main axes, proposing works by some of the best-known protagonists of international fashion photography through the participating galleries.

Among the authors present are Giovanni Gastel, Françoise Huguier, Marco Glaviano and Michelangelo Di Battista, proposed respectively by Photo & Contemporary of Turin, Ira Leonis of Arles, Deodato Arte of Milan and JaegerArt of Berlin. The path outlined by the fair addresses fashion photography as an artistic practice capable of constructing imaginaries, narratives and cultural codes that have traversed the contemporary visual system.

One of the main nuclei concerns the work of Giovanni Gastel, among the most recognized Italian photographers on the international fashion scene. His production is presented as an example of the transition of fashion photography from a strictly editorial language to an iconic, museum-like form. Throughout his career, Gastel has collaborated with magazines such as Vanity Fair and Vogue, as well as with numerous international fashion houses, defining an aesthetic that over time has also found a place in the contemporary art system.

Among the works presented by Photo & Contemporary appears Beauty, Margarita from 2012, a 60 x 80 centimeter Hahnemühle Fine Art print belonging to the series Le Metamorfosi. The work insists on the transformative and poetic component of the author’s research; another example of the same work is currently on display at Palazzo Citterio in the Giovanni Gastel Rewind exhibition. Also featured will be Untitled, Rome 2008 Vanity Fair, a black-and-white photograph made for Vanity Fair in the Foro Italico swimming pool. The image relates the body to the monumental space designed by Marcello Piacentini and the historic mosaics of the Roman facility. The work had already been shown in 2016 at Palazzo della Ragione in the exhibition curated by Germano Celant and later at MAXXI. Also on view at the fair will be Vanity Fair from 2008, taken from the series Retrò, a work that reflects on the possibility for images born in the editorial sphere to acquire an autonomous exhibition and museum dimension.

Alongside Gastel, The Phair features the photographs of Françoise Huguier, a central figure in contemporary French photography. The Ira Leonis gallery in Arles presents some works from the Sublimes series, a project developed through years of attending workshops and high fashion shows. In the reading proposed by the fair, Huguier goes beyond the traditional fixity of the fashion image to dwell on the hidden details of sartorial savoir-faire and the materiality of clothes and fabrics. The works devoted to the Haute Couture collections of Christian Lacroix spring-summer 1999 and Jean-Paul Gaultier fall-winter 1998 return a vision in which fashion becomes a cultural and narrative element, beyond the dimension of visual seduction.

In contrast, the section dedicated to Marco Glaviano reconstructs the relationship between glamour, pop photography and the international publishing industry. Born in Italy and established in the United States, Glaviano worked since the 1970s for some of the leading European and American fashion magazines, until signing an exclusive contract with Vogue America and later with Harper’s Bazaar between 1982 and 1994. Over the course of his career, he produced more than five hundred covers and editorials. According to The Phair’s curatorial approach, his production shows how glamour photography can become a device capable of orienting the perception and construction of desire. At the center remains the body, interpreted as a space of projection of cultural and social codes.

Deodato Arte presents in Turin Paulina Porizkova (St. Barth), a 1989 photograph dedicated to the iconic model of the 1980s and 1990s. The work, set on the Caribbean island of St. Barth, comes from the photographer’s historical archives and has been made available through an exclusive collaboration with the Milan gallery. The print is offered in three different formats, 25 x 35 centimeters, 60 x 80 and 100 x 135, in a limited edition, with Giclée technique, signature and numbering of the artist and certificate of authenticity.

A further side of the dialogue between photography and pop culture emerges in the Mystery in the Moonlight project, a collaboration between Michelangelo Di Battista and Jake and Dinos Chapman, exponents of the Young British Artists. Presented by Jaeger Art in Berlin, the series features Claudia Schiffer in scenarios constructed through an intentionally artificial and surreal aesthetic, inspired by low-budget horror films of the 1950s.

The images combine photography, hand-painted backdrops, and studio-built settings, creating a dimension suspended between film, fashion, and contemporary art. Dramatic light and stage construction alter the viewer’s perception, to the point of transforming the photographs into frames of a nonexistent film. In this operation, photography is proposed as a narrative and ambiguous space, in which the boundaries between reality and fiction, between high culture and popular imagination are dissolved. The presence of these authors consolidates one of the main themes of the 2026 edition of The Phair: the redefinition of photography as a contemporary cultural heritage and as an artistic language independent of its documentary function. Fashion, in this context, becomes a ground for visual experimentation and symbolic construction that crosses publishing, art and popular culture.

The Phair | Photo Art Fair 2026 will open with a press preview and invitation-only opening on May 21, 2026, reserved for press, industry professionals and accredited guests. The event will then be open to the public from May 22 to 24 in the spaces of OGR Turin, accompanied by a program of meetings and talks with international guests dedicated to the latest research in the field of contemporary images.

The Phair 2026 brings fashion photography as contemporary work to Turin

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.