Valérie Belin : Meta-clichés is the artist’s first exhibition in China, co-organised by Shen Chen (Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing), Karen Smith (SCôP) and Feige Xiao (National Museum, Chendgu) as part of the Croisements en Chine festival. This touring exhibition will be shown at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing, the Shanghai Center of Photography, and, finally, at the National Museum in Chendgu. 

 

Most of the works exhibited were created after 2006, the year when colour began to appear in Valérie Belin’s work, introducing a new ambiguity in the relation between real and virtual. At the same time, the photographic medium became enriched by technology, which plays a role in shaping living forms. Here, Belin moves away from an “indexical” conception of photography and her style turns towards a more “magical” form of realism whose object goes to the heart of contemporary developments: the works display a hybrid nature which places the subject between the organic and the sublime. For example, the Models II series heightens the artificial and pictorial aspect of the subjects and marks the passage from a photographic regime to a regime of the image. The series on the Lido dancer made in 2007 reflects her interest in simulacra and simulation.

 

Finally, a large part of the exhibition is given over to series made by superimposing several images. These works embody a kind of mutual contamination of beings and things.

 

Press release

 

 

Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing.

 

Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing.

 

 Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing.

 

 

SCôP, Shanghai.

 

SCôP, Shanghai.

 

SCôP, Shanghai.

 

SCôP, Shanghai.

 

SCôP, Shanghai.

 

SCôP, Shanghai.

 

SCôP, Shanghai.

 

 

Chengdu Museum, Chengdu.

 

Chengdu Museum, Chengdu.

 

Chengdu Museum, Chengdu.

 

Chengdu Museum, Chengdu.

 

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