Paris Photo 2021 review - a moveable feast

★★★★ PARIS PHOTO 2021 The Grand Palais Éphémère hosts a wonderful show

Paris Photo returns, in a new temporary home

Paris Photo 2021 was a wonderful show. Back after the pandemic it was moved to the Grand Palais Éphémère, a temporary structure built to host major art exhibitions while the Grand Palais itself is modernised in preparation for the 2024 Olympics. There were 178 exhibitors at the Grand Palais from 29 countries, 19 solo shows and 8 duo shows. There were thousands of images on display.

Documenting the unimaginable: photographer Sebastião Salgado talks about climate change, dodging caimans and changing perspectives

How does Western behaviour risk turning the Amazonian paradise into a hell?

Sebastião Salgado has carved out his career by documenting the unimaginable. He takes areas of life all too often ignored by wealthy westerners and reveals them in mesmerising, teeming detail.

My Father and Me, BBC Two review - Nick Broomfield's moving voyage around his family

★★★★★ MY FATHER AND ME, BBC TWO Nick Broomfield's voyage around his family

Acclaimed documentarist's most personal film acutely catches social history

Nick Broomfield made his first film 50 years ago, and his career over those five decades (and some three dozen works) has been as distinctive, and distinguished as that of any British documentary maker.

Prix Pictet: Confinement review - a year in photographs

★★★★ PRIX PICTET: CONFINEMENT Prize-winning photographers respond to the pandemic

Prize-winning photographers respond to the pandemic

Sustainability and the environment are watchwords for the Prix Pictet, the international photography prize now in its ninth cycle. Since its launch in 2008, it has responded to the state of the world with urgency and compassion, its shortlists all the more intriguing for their oscillations between the universal and the personal, the global and the local.

Agustín Fernández Mallo: The Things We've Seen review - degrees of separation

★★★ AUGUSTÍN FERNÁNDEZ MALLO: THE THINGS WE'VE SEEN Degrees of separation

The B-side of reality comes to the fore in this roving exploration of connection and isolation

Trilogies (it is noted, in the term’s Wikipedia entry) “are common in speculative fiction”. They are found in those works with elements “non-existent in reality”, which cover various themes “in the context of the supernatural, futuristic, and many other imaginative topics”. All of these apply in some sense to The Things We’ve Seen, the latest novel from Spanish writer Agustín Fernández Mallo.

Blu-ray: Visual Acoustics

★★★★ BLU-RAY: VISUAL ACOUSTICS 'The Modernism of Julius Shulman' salutes an eminent American architectural photographer

'The Modernism of Julius Shulman' salutes an eminent American architectural photographer

One of the world’s leading architectural photographers, Julius Shulman was the subject of a show at London’s Photographers’ Gallery this autumn, “Altered States of America”. That title surely alluded to the visual modernism that changed the face of that country over the course of the 20th century, which Shulman, working in close tandem with the architects concerned, captured over a career of almost eight decades, in California especially.

Visual Arts Lockdown Special 4: half-way houses

VISUAL ARTS LOCKDOWN SPECIAL 4 Some galleries prepare to reopen, others remain closed; online still offers riches

Some galleries prepare to reopen, others remain closed; online still offers riches

With the first round of galleries opening their doors in June and a new round getting ready to open in July, we’ve a half-way home of a roundup this week. This month’s re-openings include the National Gallery, the Royal Academy, the Barbican, the Whitechapel, the Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, the Mosaic Rooms, the Estorick Collection, the Garden Museum and the Tates – Modern, Britain, Liverpool and St Ives.

Moyra Davey: Index Cards review – fragments of the artist

★ MOYRA DAVEY: INDEX CARDS Fragments of the artist

An itinerant set of essays on the making of a distinctive style

Moyra Davey’s biographical note, included in Fitzcarraldo Editions’ copy of Index Cards, describes “a New York-based artist whose work comprises the fields of photography, film and writing.” It is a useful aperture into the Toronto-born artist’s varied oeuvre, and to the book itself.

Among the Trees, Hayward Gallery review - a mixture of euphoria and dismay

★★★★ AMONG THE TREES, HAYWARD GALLERY A mixture of euphoria and dismay

Our complex relationship with trees explored to powerful effect

Paradise, according to German artist Thomas Struth, is to be found in the tropical rain forests of Yunnan Province, China. His gorgeous photograph Paradise 11 is the first thing I saw on entering the Hayward Gallery and, immediately it had a soothing effect on my frazzled urban psyche.

Bill Brandt/Henry Moore, The Hepworth Wakefield review - a matter of perception

★★★★★ REOPENING THIS WEEKEND - BILL BRANDT/HENRY MOORE, THE HEPWORTH WAKEFIELD Cerebral show teases out affinities between photography and sculpture

Cerebral show teases out fascinating affinities between photography and sculpture

Bill Brandt’s photographs and Henry Moore’s studies of people sheltering underground during the Blitz (September 1940 to May 1941) offer glimpses of a world that is, thankfully, lost to us. A year and a half after the end of the bombing campaign, the work of the two artists was published side-by-side in the December 1942 edition of the pioneering illustrated magazine, Lilliput.