Beauty is still offered beyond what’s good or true. Independent of its explanations. Some people I love are constantly suspicious of beautiful things, especially in the arena of contemporary art, as if they were deceived. They’re right, so I am reminded when looking again at Valérie Belin’s brilliantly tempting art, one can never take the lie out of beauty. So gently is this candid lesson sinking in, looking at her perfect mannequins looking back at you, or confusing them with her China Girls, you wish to believe that something out of all the uncanny lookalikes or the eerily shining bodybuilders and crystals and bouquets is real, lest the alleged thinness of beauty would leave you with too little to hold on to. But Valérie taught me (like Oscar Wilde, or Claude Cahun) that some lies are not fake at all, some masks are all we wear. Just look at her photographs long enough, and don’t blink.