Valérie Belin: Made Up at the Peabody Essex Museum from October 17, 2009 through January 18, 2010

French photographer Valérie Belin’s first one-person show in the United States opens today at the Peabody Essex Museum. Belin is an artist as famous for the unsettling qualities of her floor-to-ceiling photographs as she is for her provocative subjects. Well-recognized in the past for her portrait series of Michael Jackson impersonators, body builders, lapdogs and showgirls, Belin delves deep into a subject of fascination compelling viewers to probe the sublime quality of even the most familiar things.

Valérie Belin: Made Up presents 20 exquisitely-printed, larger-than-life images exploring a photographer’s ability to manipulate perception of artificiality and reality. From shimmering black and white portraits of mannequins and models, ballroom dancers and bags of chips, to richly-colored and unexpected still lifes, all have their place in Belin’s studio and in PEM’s galleries. Referencing French philosophical traditions, Belin continually challenges her viewers to consider what is real, what is artificial — and whether knowing the difference matters after all.

Among Belin’s most recent shows was a joint exhibition with Édouard Manet at the legendary Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Belin’s 2007 mid-career retrospective was received with enormous popular and critical praise across Europe — she is rapidly becoming a leader in the world of photography.