Style, artifice, and their ungainly stepchild, affectation, have long drawn Belin. She’s done photographic studies of Michael Jackson impersonators, showgirls, bodybuilders, and lapdogs. Here she photographs mannequins that look almost human, a human who looks almost like a mannequin (she’s a cabaret performer who’s identically posed in three shots, each time wearing a different costume), gargantuan still lifes, and a pair of chip bags.
These are items whose artifice we tend to ignore. Belin uses scale to reorient them. Her pictures raise questions about our idea of beauty (those chip bags are surprisingly attractive). They also confront the nature of portraiture. Is it meant to present or reveal? Well, both, of course, but by emphasizing presentation at the expense of revelation she makes us see the portrait afresh.
