Valérie Belin

Where does this sense of the uncanny in Valérie Belin's photographs come from? From the living complexion of her shop window mannequins, or the fixed expressions of these women encountered in the street? Are we looking at a double or a wax figure? Before these images, so clear that they are disturbing, it is often hard to say whether what you see is alive or inanimate, real or artificial. With forty-odd works, the exhibition presents her very latest series, reviving the theme of the mannequin. "Intellectual uncertainty is a condition essential to produce a sense of the uncanny," said Freud. This is precisely what gives Valérie Belin's works their singular power.