Agnès Varda was a director but also a photographer with a gift for capturing the moment. In spring 2025, the Carnavalet museum will host an exhibition dedicated to the filmmaker and her attachment to the French capital. Baptized The Paris of Agnès Varda, here and therethe event will highlight the photographic corpus of Varda while revealing the importance of the city in his work and his life, starting with his legendary courtyard-workshop located on rue de Daguerre. “I don't live in Paris, I live in the 14th”, she said about her address.
Agnès Varda, Paris and photography
It took the Carnavalet museum team two years of research to develop the exhibition. The Paris of Agnès Varda, here and there, largely bringing together the photographic background ofAgnès Varda as well as the Ciné-Tamaris archives. Made up of 130 prints as well as extracts from new films shot entirely in the capital, the retrospective weaves the web of a vibrant feminine spirit. At the same time, the museum decided to group together all of the personal effects of Varda such as publications, documents, objects that belonged to the artist, posters, filming photographs as well as a sculpture of his cat Nini.
Immersed in the career of the French artist, the retrospective explores her beginnings as a photographer. It all begins in the courtyard-workshop, a room for all possibilities, at the same time a shooting studio, a creative development laboratory and the location of its first exhibition in 1954. This courtyard will then be a stage dedicated to the seventh art when it sharing with his companion Jacques Demy. However, let us not forget that the central dialogue of the event takes place between Paris and Agnès Varda. The photos exhibited therefore cultivate the artist's offbeat vision of the capital. Between documentary and fiction, will of course be discussed Cleo from 5 to 7a work inherent to his filmography which captures the energy of Paname through a strong and tortured female figure. The filmmaker was as interested in the inhabitants of the city as in the figures on the margins. In Daguerreotypes (1975), documentary filmed along rue Daguerre, Agnès Varda creates a set of portraits of his merchant neighbors. His soul as a photographer also crystallizes the plural lives of women like his photographic book project The opera-Mouffeillustrating songs about the Mouffetard district, which in 1958 became a short film exploring the contradictory feelings that go through a pregnant woman in one of the poorest districts of Paris. With this new exhibition, the legacy of Varda continues to shine for the best.
The Paris of Agnès Varda, here and there, an exhibition to be seen from April 9 to August 24, 2024 at the Carnavalet museum, 23 rue de Sévigné, 75003, Paris.
