Biography

Valérie Belin is a French artist.

Born in Boulogne-Billancourt in 1964.

Lives and works in Paris.

After studying at the École nationale des beaux-arts in Bourges and completing a postgraduate degree (DEA) in philosophy of art at Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Valérie Belin very early on chose photography as her field of exploration. Her work is grounded in a rigorous reflection on the properties of the medium and its capacity to reveal the presence of reality through the imprint of light. Influenced by American Minimalism, she conceives photography as an experience of reduction and precision, in which the decontextualized object becomes trace, memory, and pure form. From the 1990s onward, she asserted a singular style based on frontality, seriality, and the strict application of protocol; with Bodybuilders (1999), followed by Transsexuals, Black Women, and Mannequins, she introduced the human figure into her work, questioning identity, simulacrum, and representation through monumental black-and-white portraits.

From 2006 onward, the introduction of color intensified the tension between the real and the virtual and marked a shift toward what she describes as a “magical realism,” in which the figure becomes hybrid—between flesh, icon, and illusion. Series such as Ballroom Dancers, Vintage Cars, Crowned Heads, Black Eyed Susan, Stage Sets, Still Life, and Super Models testify to this transformation of vision. Through repetition, saturation, and montage, she creates images that are both baroque and conceptual, where beauty and artifice merge, while also extending her practice into video and performance, transposing her images into motion within a dialogue between reality and simulacrum.

Her work has rapidly achieved international recognition and entered the collections of major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. She was awarded the Prix Pictet in 2015 and was named Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2022. Major recent exhibitions include presentations at the MUba Eugène Leroy and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux. Her election to the Académie des beaux-arts consecrates a major body of work that incisively questions the very nature of the image, as well as its beauty and its power of transformation.

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2000 CCF Award (HSBC Foundation for Photography Award)

2001 Altadis Award

2001 Villa Médicis hors les murs - AFAA (Association Française d’Action Artistique)

2015 Prix Pictet

2017 Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Ministry of Culture and Communication

2023 Commandeur de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Ministry of Culture

2024 Elected member of Académie des beaux-arts, France 

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, France.

Centre national d’art et de culture Georges-Pompidou, Paris, France.

Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, France.

Fonds national d’art contemporain, Paris, France.

Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

International Center for Photography, New York, USA.

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel.

J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, USA.

Kunstmuseum Lichtenstein, Vaduz, Lichtenstein.

Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA.

MAC VAL, musée d’Art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine, France.

Maison européenne de la photographie, Paris, France.

Miniature Museum, Ria & Lex Daniëls Collection, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, Netherlands.

Mudam Luxembourg, musée d’Art moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg, Luxembourg.

Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France.

Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle, Calais, France.

Musée Galliera, Paris, France.

Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA.

National Gallery of Australia, Parkes ACT, Canberra, Australia.

National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea, Seoul, South Korea.

Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, USA.

Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, USA.

Photo Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Pilara Family Foundation, San Francisco, USA.

Sammlung Essl, Kunst Der Gegenwart, Klosterneuburg, Vienna, Austria.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA.

Victoria & Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom.