VALÉRIE BELIN

Valérie Belins (1964) shop windows series multiply the paradoxes of presence and absence. These outdated store fronts are frozen, illusory and vain and thus call into question the notions of display, reflection and illusion. Given artistic form by the eye of the photographer, they are transformed into icons of society.

The seven black and white photographs by Valérie Belin which make up the Vitrines Luxembourg series are the result of an order commissioned by Mudam to the artist in 2003. They reveal a fairly atypical aspect of the artist’s works. Although her series of photographs of automobile carcasses, her portraits of body-builders, transsexuals or models are characterised by neutral backgrounds and crude, front lighting, these photographs of Luxembourg shop windows evoke scenes situated outside of time, much like still-lifes. A game is set up between the time- less atmosphere that the photographs radiate and the recent date of creation of these works of art.
Vitrines Luxembourg is also distinguished from other series by the artist by the fact that the subjects here are not entirely out of context: the subtle play of reflections in the windows allow the artist to situate them in their local environment. Empty of any human presence, these photographs do not try to provoke narratives. Rather, they are associated with developing a certain tension between this emptiness and the animation that one would imagine around a business. Far from representing symbols of modern consumerism, the works of Belin push to the fore the timeless contradictions of these windows.

Eldorado
01/07/2006 - 20/11/2006

www.valeriebelin.com