Photography - Agnès Varda Cinema

Starting in December 2025, the Instituto Moreira Salles (IMS) in São Paulo will present a new exhibition dedicated to Agnès Varda, featuring nearly 200 photographs, some of which come from the collection held at the Institut pour la photographie.

Mostly taken between the 1950s and 1960s, these images engage in a dialogue with the artist’s cinematic work and shed light on a pivotal period in her photographic practice. The exhibition brings together photographs from trips taken to China in 1957, in post-revolutionary Cuba, in the United States, where Agnès Varda documented the Black Panthers, and in Paris, notably through staged scenes created with the Griots, the capital’s first Black theater company.

throughout this body of work, the defining characteristics of his visual approach become evident: an affectionate focus on the subjects he photographs, a subtle sense of humor, and a sensitivity that permeates his entire body of work. These images reflect an approach that is both documentary in nature and deeply embodied, attentive to social, cultural, and human contexts.

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↘︎ Storage: In conjunction with the exhibition, the Institut pour la photographie, with support from the Institut français, carried out digitization and restoration work on several of the prints on display. These efforts restored the legibility of photographs that had deteriorated over time, while preserving the physical and aesthetic integrity of the works. This work is part of the Institut pour la photographie’s mission to conserve and promote the Agnès Varda collection held in its archives.

↘︎ Roaming: The Exhibition Photography by AGNÈS VARDA, Film will be on view from September 12, 2026, to February 28, 2027, at the Iberê Camargo Foundation—Avenida Padre Cacique, 2000, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.