Agnès Varda: Here and there, Paris-Rome
Villa Medici is proud to present Agnès Varda: Here and There, Paris–Rome, the first major retrospective of the artist and filmmaker’s photographic work ever held in Italy. On view from until 25 May 2026, the exhibition also marks the 70th anniversary of the twinning agreement between Paris and Rome.
Drawing on over 130 original prints, film clips, publications, archival documents, posters, on-set photographs, and personal objects, the retrospective traces Varda’s singular eye across five decades — from the postwar streets of Paris to the landscapes and film sets of Italy. The exhibition is divided into two complementary sections, curated respectively by Anne de Mondenard (Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris) and Carole Sandrin (Institut pour la photographie des Hauts-de-France).
The first section immerses visitors in the world of Rue Daguerre — the Paris courtyard-studio where Varda lived, worked, and held her first exhibition in 1954, and which remained the creative heart of her life for nearly seven decades. Through her photographs and film clips, the exhibition reveals the offbeat, humour-inflected gaze she brought to the French capital and its inhabitants, with particular attention to women and those living on society’s margins. Key works such as Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) and Daguerreotypes (1975) are woven into the display, alongside works by artists presented in dialogue with Varda’s own, including Alexander Calder, Martine Franck, JR, and Collier Schorr, among others.
Originally conceived by the Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris and Paris Musées, this section was first presented in Paris from April to August 2025 and is now shown for the first time in Italy, with the exceptional collaboration of Rosalie Varda.
The second section, developed specifically for Villa Medici, brings to light an unpublished body of work: photographs taken by Varda during two visits to Italy, in 1959 and 1963. Working as a press photographer for French and European publications, she captured Venice and its surroundings, the sculptural strangeness of the Villa della Torre near Verona and the Bomarzo Gardens in Lazio, as well as two emblematic encounters on Roman film sets — a portrait session with Luchino Visconti, fresh from his Palme d’Or for The Leopard, and a visit to the set of Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt at the Titanus studios, where she photographed Godard directing Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance, and Michel Piccoli.
Drawn from Rosalie Varda’s collection and the archives deposited at the Institut pour la photographie des Hauts-de-France, these works are presented publicly for the first time.
Here and There, Paris–Rome coincides with Viva Varda (5 March 2026 – 10 January 2027) at the Galleria Modernissimo of the Cineteca di Bologna — a comprehensive survey of Varda’s entire body of work, held in collaboration with the Cinémathèque Française and Ciné-Tamaris, the production company she founded and which continues to be run by her children, Rosalie Varda and Mathieu Demy.
About the Author
Agnès Varda (Ixelles, 30 May 1928 – Paris, 29 March 2019) was a Belgian-born filmmaker, screenwriter, and photographer, widely regarded as a pioneering figure of the French New Wave — and the only woman among its founding voices alongside Truffaut and Godard. Born to a Greek father and a French mother, she grew up in Sète before moving to Paris, where she began her career as a photographer at the Théâtre National Populaire under Jean Vilar.
In 1954 she made her debut feature, La Pointe Courte, edited by Alain Resnais — a film that brought a new spirit of freedom to French cinema. Her second feature, Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), confirmed her as a major voice in world cinema. Often described by critics as the first feminist filmmaker, her work consistently centred on the complexity of women’s inner lives and on those living at the margins of society.
Over the following decades she worked fluidly across fiction and documentary, earning the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1965 and the Golden Lion at Venice in 1985 for Vagabond, which launched Sandrine Bonnaire to international acclaim. She also received an honorary César in 2005. A passionate advocate for women both on and off screen, she was the first female director in cinema history to receive an honorary Oscar, awarded in 2017. She died in Paris on 29 March 2019, at the age of 90, and is buried at Montparnasse Cemetery alongside her husband, the filmmaker Jacques Demy.
Agnès Varda: Here and There, Paris–Rome
25 February – 25 May 2026
Villa Medici, Rome, Italy
More info:
