Paris: Carnavalet Museum Entry Ticket

Highlights

• Discover the history of Paris from prehistory to the present day
• Explore the work of Agnès Varda, a French photographer and filmmaker
• See the city through the eyes of a female protagonist in the 1962 film Cléo
• Learn about the history of the Carnavalet Museum and its architecture
• See 130 prints and excerpts from films shot entirely or partly in Paris

Description

Explore the oldest museum in Paris, the Carnavalet-History of Paris Museum, which opened to the public on February 25, 1880. Discover the history of the city through the museum's continuously enriched collections.

Since 1880, the museum has been substantially enlarged, with the construction of new buildings and the annexation of the Le Peletier de Sant-Fargeau mansion in 1989. The museum’s architecture now offers a history spanning more than 450 years.

See the exhibition Agnès Varda’s Paris, from here to there, which explores the work of Agnès Varda (1928-2019) from a fresh angle. Discover the artist’s still little-known photographic work and highlights the important role of her courtyard-studio on the rue Daguerre in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, in her life and creation, from 1951 to 2019.

On a broader level, the exhibition reveals the importance of the French capital in a free and prolific body of work that never took the easy way out but skilfully wove a dialogue between documentary and fiction. After shedding light on Agnès Varda’s fledgling steps as a photographer, the exhibition immerses visitors in her courtyard-studio, at a time when it was both a photography studio, a development and printing laboratory, and the site of her first solo exhibition in 1954.

The same courtyard is then revisited from the 1960s. By then, Agnès Varda was sharing it with filmmaker Jacques Demy, and it was frequented by well-known names from the cinema, after also having attracted figures from the world of theatre.

In the next section, the exhibition presents an ensemble of photographs that highlight the offbeat, humorous, and eccentric gaze through which the artist observed the people and streets of the capital. The filmmaker’s view of Paris is evoked in a chronological thematic sequence, showing films shot entirely in Paris, beginning with Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962).

In it, the city is filmed in such a way that it resonates with the female protagonist’s emotions. The result of more than two years of research, this exhibition is based primarily on Agnès Varda’s photographic collection and Ciné-Tamaris archives. It compares her photographic and cinematic work through an ensemble of 130 prints, many of which have never been seen before, as well as excerpts from films shot entirely or partly in Paris.