Questionnaire: Agnès Varda
Q: What should change? A: Poverty in the world. Injustice.
Q: What should change? A: Poverty in the world. Injustice.
What images keep you company in the space where you work?
The space itself, wherever I am, as a combination of images surrounded by silence.
What was the first piece of art that really mattered to you?
At first it was a reproduction – of Albrecht Dürer’s Study of Hands (1506). Later, I saw real paintings at the Louvre. I’m not a believer and never was but I was impressed by Enguerrand Quarton’s Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon (c.1450–60).
If you could live with only one piece of art, what would it be?
A stone that I consider beautiful.
What is your favourite title of an artwork?
Ceci n’est pas une pomme (This Is Not an Apple, 1898) by Rene Magritte.
What do you wish you knew?
To understand people, I wish I knew different languages such as Chinese, Italian, Portuguese and dialects, the ones of Northern and Southern France.
What should change?
Poverty in the world. Injustice.
What should stay the same?
Some landscapes, some children’s smiles …
What could you imagine doing if you didn’t do what you do?
Finding ways other than photography and cinema to capture fragile instants – as substitutes for memory.
What music are you listening to?
Nowadays, no music.
What are you reading?
I read with difficulty but, when I do, I read books about artists: long-form texts on Niki de Saint Phalle or Miquel Barceló, for instance.
