The Paris of Agnès Varda

The temple of Parisian memory opens its doors to an exceptional exhibition dedicated to Agnès Varda, a key figure of the New Wave. In the form of a retrospective, "Agnès Varda's Paris, Here and There" celebrates the visceral bond between the filmmaker and the capital, through a mosaic of previously unseen images, personal objects, and film excerpts. A dive into the poetic and committed universe of the artist who made everyday life the theater of her creations.

Often perceived as a filmmaker above all, Agnès Varda (1928-2019) unveils here a little-known facet of her work: photography. The exhibition highlights her beginnings behind the lens, long before she picked up the camera to revolutionize cinema. The 130 prints on display, many of which are previously unseen, bear witness to a unique perspective on Paris: offbeat, full of humor, and profoundly human. We discover a Varda who captures mundane details to reveal their beauty, as she would do in her films.

Very early on, Agnès Varda, equipped with her Rolleiflex camera, photographed as she breathed. In 1949, at the age of 21, she became the official photographer of the Avignon Festival. From 1951 to 1961, she immortalized the stages and backstage of the Théâtre National Populaire, building a reputation with magazines like Réalités. In Sète, where she lived during the war, she photographed La Pointe Courte, capturing nearly 250 images of this fishing district. These shots would inspire her first film, La Pointe Courte (1954). Back in Paris, she settled at 86 rue Daguerre, in a studio-laboratory that she would inhabit for the rest of her life, making this space a creative and intimate sanctuary.

Here she is, 26 years old, owner of her own photo studio, under a glass roof to benefit from natural light. It's true that it's on the upper floor of her house, made up of two ruined shops and a squat toilet, but she's at home and free to create as she sees fit. The young girl, who looks like a dancing faun, photographs her friends and then actors in search of sober, unadorned portraits. Delphine Seyrig, Gerard Philippe, Federico Fellini, Brassaï, Anna Karina, Michel Piccoli, Gérard Depardieu, etc.

The reconstruction of the legendary courtyard-studio on Rue Daguerre (14th arrondissement), where Varda lived and worked for nearly seventy years, is a highlight of the exhibition. An emblematic location, the beating heart of her creativity, it served as her photo studio, her photo lab, and her photo exhibition space from the 1950s onward. It was here that she held her first solo exhibition in 1954.
Later, in 1960, this courtyard became a shared space with Jacques Demy, welcoming figures from the worlds of cinema and theater. This immersion in his daily life allows us to understand how this space influenced his creative process.

The exhibition also explores the dialogue between Varda's photographic and cinematic work. Excerpts from her films shot in Paris – classics such as Cleo from 5 to 7 ; The song, the outside world ou Daguerreotypes – are paralleled with her urban photographs. The camera and the lens become tools in a single quest: to capture the soul of a constantly evolving city. Paris is not just a setting for Varda; it is a character in its own right, a mirror of the social struggles and human stories that fascinate her.

The exhibition also features objects belonging to the artist: posters, publications, and photographs from the shoot. These items allow us to approach Agnès Varda in all her complexity: a committed woman, a feminist before her time, who gave a voice to the marginalized while celebrating the simple beauties of everyday life. The exhibition concludes with a series of intimate portraits in her courtyard-studio, offering a final glimpse at the woman who transformed her own face into artistic raw material.

From April 9 to August 24, 2025