Agnès Varda

Agnès Varda (Brussels, 1928 - Paris, 2019) was one of the few women directors of her generation. A precursor in the Nouvelle Vague film movement, Varda broke with norms and clichés, aiming always to renew her approach. She made over 40 films, including feature films and shorts, fiction and documentary, and embracing both analogue and digital cinema.

This exhibition celebrates the talent and career of a bold, original artist who experimented and played with art’s multiple supports and languages. Before becoming a filmmaker, Varda was a photographer and portraitist, and, when she was older, she created art installations for museums. For the first time in Catalonia, the exhibition brings together four of Varda’s installations, along with a selection of essential short films from her filmography that can be seen in projection rooms in the gallery space.

The exhibition also presents the fascinating life of Agnès Varda, marked by a long career making films with few resources and little recognition, and by her travels, her children, her friendships and her various relationships. Varda was active in the social and political effervescence of her time: feminism, the hippie movement and struggles of the Black Panthers. She moved both with famous artists and actors and anonymous people on the fringes, who she set out to represent and honour in her films.

Agnès Varda. Photograph, Film, Recycle reflects the open, travelling Varda spirit using personal objects, posters, artworks, and her portraits and photoreportage, some of it unknown or hitherto unexhibited, like the series of photos of her trip to Catalonia in 1955.

To highlight Varda’s curiosity and her playful nature, we’ll be opening the Varda Laboratory, a space to explore the artist’s imaginary and discover her fascination with cats, mirrors and beaches.

To coincide with the exhibition, La Filmoteca de Catalunya has programmed a cycle presenting Varda’s essential films, such as La Pointe Courte (1954), Cléo de 5 à 7 (Cleo from 5 to 7, 1962), Sans toit ni loi (Vagabond, 1985), Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse (The Gleaners and I, 2000) and Visages Villages (Faces Places, 2017), among others.

The exhibition Agnès Varda. Photograph, Film, Recycle is an extended adaptation of Viva Varda!, devised and produced by the Cinémathèque française in Paris in collaboration with Ciné-Tamaris and with the kind contribution of Rosalie Varda and Mathieu Demy.

Artistic Director: Rosalie Varda
Advisor for the exhibition at the CCCB: Imma Merino