Agnès Varda, a journey into the imagination of an icon

Two exhibitions, one story. Italia pays tribute to Agnès Varda with a widespread exhibition project that crosses photography, cinema and memory, restoring all the modernity of her gaze with historical rigour and contemporary strength. An articulated and coherent exhibition project takes shape between Rome and Bologna, capable of restoring the complexity of one of the most influential figures of 20th century France. These are not simply two parallel exhibitions, but a long-distance dialogue that builds a complete portrait of the artist: from his photographic origins to his full cinematic and installation maturity.

In Rome, in the spaces of Villa Medici, the exhibition Here and there, between Paris and Rome chooses a precise point of view: going back to the roots. It focuses on the years of her training, when Varda defined herself first and foremost as a photographer. The images on display tell of a lively and marginal Paris, populated by anonymous faces and everyday stories, already traversed by that empathetic and political gaze that was to become the hallmark of her work. An intimate, almost silent exhibition that allows us to grasp the moment in which a language is born. Photography does not appear as a preliminary phase, but as the foundation of everything that will come later: cinema, installations, narrative research.

Bologna, on the other hand, expands the project and multiplies it. Viva Varda! Il cinema è donna, hosted at the Galleria Modernissimo, is a true immersion in the artist's universe and an involuntary manifesto because cinema, for Varda, has always been a space of freedom and redefinition of the female gaze. The exhibition insists on this aspect, highlighting the centrality of female figures, linguistic experimentation and social commitment that runs through her entire production. Promoted by the Cineteca di Bologna together with the Cinémathèque Française, the exhibition occupies over 1,200 square metres and offers a total immersion in the artist's work: films, installations, photographs, costumes and archive materials.

The itinerary is divided into thematic sections that run through, the relationship with the image (photography, painting, self-portrait), film writing and female characters, political and social commitment and the nomadic and documentary dimension of her work. An entire section is dedicated to the relationship between Varda and Italia, underlining the cultural dialogue that this double exhibition - Rome/Bologna - makes explicit. In parallel, the Cinema Modernissimo hosts a complete retrospective of her films, extending the experience beyond the museum space.