Valérie Belin's 'Reflection(s)' at Galerie Nathalie Obadia

Valérie Belin's new series 'Reflection' is on view at Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Paris from February 6 to April 4, 2020, while also being presented at the V&A in London until August 31, 2020. Commissioned by the V&A, Belin created eleven large black-and-white photographs that explore reflections, transparencies, and superimpositions. She drew inspiration from the V&A's photographic collection, particularly images of shop windows by masters like Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, and Lee Friedlander, as well as lesser-known sources such as the Worsinger Window Service and Robert Brownjohn's vernacular signage. The series uses superimpositions of photographs taken in Manhattan and its surroundings over recent years. Belin's work engages with surrealist concerns, focusing on mannequins in displays that evoke an uncanny urban theater. By adopting a frontal perspective, she collapses interior and exterior into a flat, fantastical space, questioning the medium's supposed transparency. Post-production overlays create artificial reflections, blending disparate images into layered compositions that challenge perception. The photographs incorporate typographic elements and neon signs, referencing photography's etymology as 'writing with light.' Some images, like 'Uptown Vision,' evoke the aesthetics of 1960s experimental cinema. The series avoids critical or discursive positions, relying instead on ornamental richness to offset formal rigor.