Valérie Belin's Magic Realism at Museu Picasso Barcelona

Valérie Belin (Boulogne-Billancourt, 1964) presents a selection of her work at the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, exploring connections with Picasso's legacy. Belin, who studied Philosophy and Fine Arts, uses photography to investigate how identity, beauty, and power are visually constructed. She describes her approach as 'magic realism,' a term she adopted after introducing color in 2006, where figures become hybrids of flesh, icon, and illusion. Her subjects include bodybuilders, transsexuals, mannequins, women covered in flowers, and Michael Jackson impersonators. Belin's work has been exhibited at MoMA New York, Centre Pompidou Paris, Victoria & Albert Museum London, and Kunsthaus Zürich. She won the Prix Pictet in 2015, was named Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2022, and entered the Académie des beaux-arts in 2026. In an interview, she cites influences from American minimalism and the Baroque, as well as photographers Eugène Atget and Walker Evans. She began photographing mannequins in 2003 after series on bodybuilders and models, drawn to the artificiality and distance they provide. Belin views her images as constructed objects akin to paintings, challenging conventions of representation.