Agnès Varda’s Italy
as part of ‘Agnès Varda, Here and There: Paris–Rome’
Following on from the exhibition Agnès Varda’s Paris, presented at the end of February at the Villa Medici in Rome in exceptional collaboration with the Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris, Paris Musées, the exhibition ‘Agnès Varda’s Italy’, co-produced by the Institut pour la Photographie, sheds light on the close ties between Agnès Varda and Italy through a selection of previously unseen photographs taken by the artist during two stays in Italy in 1959 and 1963.
Agnès Varda was then known as a theatre photographer and took on numerous commissions for press reports in France and across Europe. In 1959, she travelled around Venice and the surrounding area scouting locations for La Mélangite (or Les Amours de Valentin), a film she ultimately did not direct. Her photographs bear witness to her discovery of Italy and her taste for the picturesque. Her views of Venice and its inhabitants are true to her state of mind. Her spontaneous approach to photography is complemented by her attraction to graphic scenes constructed in black and white. At the Villa della Torre, near Verona, she is captivated by the materials and the strangeness of the sculptures.
In May 1963, the French magazine Réalités commissioned her to take a portrait of Luchino Visconti, who had just been awarded the Palme d’Or in Cannes for his film The Leopard. She flew to Rome with three cameras. Contact sheets and colour photographs bear witness to this photo shoot with the man the press dubbed the ‘taciturn prince of Italian cinema’. At the same time, Jean-Luc Godard was filming Le Mépris at the Titanus studios. Varda visited the set and photographed her friend directing Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance and Michel Piccoli.
Around forty period prints and documents from Agnès Varda’s personal archives and the collection held at the Institut pour la photographie des Hauts-de-France shed light for the first time on Agnès Varda’s relationship with Italy.
An exhibition co-produced by the Institut pour la Photographie and the Villa Medici, French Academy in Rome, based on the photographic collection and archives of the Agnès Varda Estate.
In collaboration with Rosalie Varda.
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Curating
Carole Sandrin, Curator of Photographic Archives at the Institut pour la photographie
Find out more about the exhibition