Nicole Gravier's Feminist Photonovel Show at Villa Medici

At the French Academy in Rome, Villa Medici, the exhibition 'Fotoromanzo' by Nicole Gravier (born 1949 in Arles) deconstructs media imagery and gender stereotypes through the popular format of the photonovel. The show, which runs until May 4, 2026, is the artist's first institutional exhibition in Italy. Gravier, who moved to Italy in the early 1970s, uses staged, ironic self-portraits to inhabit and empty clichés, exposing the fabrication of the 'feminine fiction.' Her work is deeply tied to 1970s Italian feminism and semiotic analysis of mass culture. The exhibition coincides with a concurrent show dedicated to filmmaker Agnès Varda, 'Qui e là, Tra Parigi e Roma,' also at Villa Medici (until May 25, 2026). Both artists explore women's roles and representation—Varda through documentary cinema and photography, Gravier through the photonovel.