Valérie Belin

Valérie Belin (1964) is a French artist who, after studying art and philosophy, established photography as the core of her artistic practice. Her work examines the relationship between reality, representation, and artifice through frontal, serial compositions of striking formal precision, informed by minimalism. Since the 1990s, she has incorporated the human figure to explore questions of identity and simulacrum in series such as Bodybuilders, Transsexuels, Femmes noires, and Mannequins. From 2006 onwards, she introduced colour and developed a visual language she describes as “magical realism”, in which the figure emerges as a hybrid presence—between flesh, icon, and illusion.

Her work has been exhibited internationally at leading institutions including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; the Musée de l’Élysée, Lausanne; and the Kunsthaus Zürich. She has also presented solo exhibitions at museums such as the MUba Eugène Leroy (Tourcoing) and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux. In the gallery context, she is represented primarily by Galerie Nathalie Obadia (Paris and Brussels) and Edwynn Houk Gallery (New York).

A recipient of the Prix Pictet in 2015 and appointed Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2022, Belin will be inducted into the Académie des beaux-arts in 2026, marking a significant milestone in a career that rigorously interrogates the nature and power of the contemporary image.