The third life of Agnès Varda

Silent Green presents the most comprehensive solo exhibition in Germany to date on the last creative period of the French filmmaker, photographer and visual artist Agnès Varda, who died in 2019. Varda is regarded as one of the most influential creative personalities of our time, who reinvented herself constantly in the course of her life’s work, which spanned more than six decades. However, the third creative period of the modern film’s pioneer is less known in Germany. It began in 2003 at the Venice Biennale and comprises installation works that reflect Varda’s joy in experimenting between documentary and the fiction formats, her poetic, abstract realism and her sensitive observations of socio-political issues in various visual media.

Agnès Varda (1928–2019) worked as a photographer in the 1950s, taking pictures for the Avignon Festival, for example, and producing photo reportages in China, Cuba, Portugal, and Germany. In 1954 she produced her first feature film, La Pointe Courte, which helped usher in the Nouvelle Vague. Since 2003, she has worked as a visual artist, mounting numerous exhibitions with installations, videos, and photographs.

Julia Fabry, an independent curator, visual artist, and video artist, has worked together with Varda since 2007.

Dominique Bluher is a writer and lecturer in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago. She is also associate faculty in the university’s Department of Visual Arts.