‘Bernard Faucon was one of the first photographers in the second half of the 20th century to systematically create and master the constructed image. Nonetheless, he declines Christian Caujolle’s characterization of his work as “an approach to time in the context of photography and life that investigates the feeling behind contrived settings, the deceits of photography in its relation to reality, and its manipulation of truth and forgery, which confronts the medium’s limits and defies them.”
‘Faucon’s best known work is an interrelated series of photographic tableaux made largely in the 1980s that re-create and evoke the experience called childhood, particularly the boys’ tradition called summer camp. Every photograph is carefully staged, down to the smallest detail, and uses life-like mannequins of boys who so closely resemble their real-life counterparts that it is hard to tell them apart. Bernard Faucon is an anomaly: Like other artists and photographers who utilize overtly artificial methods, he inescapably works with “constructs” and “concepts”. Yet he is not a Conceptual artist; his point is ambiguous rather than explicit or philosophical, as all Conceptual art photography is. Indeed, he has no desire to make a point at all. Instead, he wants us to relive what he cherishes and loves the most: Childhood, its particular experiences as well as the universal emotions it evokes.
‘As Faucon has put it, “The idea of fabricating fictions, the idea of a possible equation between photography and the dummies, struck me quite out of the blue. Childhoods made of flesh and plaster, the many lights of the Luberon, the nostalgia and actuality of desires, crystallised together through the magical operation of the photographic record. The power to fix, eternalise in light, attest to the world the perfection of an instant. I would hurriedly set up the dummies , and after the shot, pack up and set off again. As they invested those places that bore the mark of my childhood I imagined that those little men freed from their shop-windows, released unknown forces, brought to light sublime, masterful evidence.”
‘Faucon has produced some of the most original photographs of the late 20th century. He has been at the forefront of the staged, surrealist school of photography since its inception in the 1970s and is now considered one of its leading proponents. One of Faucon’s most ardent admirers, Roland Barthes, the greatest European critic of the latter part of the 20th century, sees his work as a metaphor for the vertiginous experience: “The real in Faucon’s art is both the subtly delirious and the heightened awareness of the feelings they arouse in us: Freakish pleasure, irrational fear, unbridled fantasies, forbidden yearnings. It is a marriage of heterogeneous species of reality.”
‘In 1995, visionary French photographer Bernard Faucon stopped taking pictures. “One way or another,” the artist declared, “I had to eventually make true my claim to finish, my obsession with closing. This became The End Of The Image.” In a move that echoes Marcel Duchamp’s public exit from the world of art to play chess, Faucon has not presented any new work since his 1995 coup d’art.’ — collaged
____
Media
Tour of Bernard Faucon’s retrospective at la maison Européenne de la Photographie
BERNARD FAUCON FACING BEIJING
Slideshow of Bernard Faucon’s work from the ’90s
La liquidation du cabanon de Bernard Faucon, 4 et 5 mars 2006
_____
Further
Bernard Faucon Official Website
Bernard Faucon: Art & writings @ Agence Vu
‘True Fiction: Bernard Faucon in China’
Bernard Faucon, “The Most Beautiful Day of My Youth”
‘Cooking is Bernard Faucon’s second oeuvre’
Bernard Faucon @ tumblr
‘Sepia Dreams’
Bernard Faucon interviewed (in French)
‘The Polaroids of Bernard Faucon’
Books on Bernard Faucon @ Amazon
‘Ballade dans l’univers glauque de Bernard Faucon’
‘Evocation de Bernard Faucon’
‘La période bleue de Bernard Faucon’
______
Interview
from Centurion Magazine
WHAT DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO THINK, FEEL OR SAY AFTER THEY’VE VIEWED A PHOTOGRAPH OF YOURS OR READ ONE OF YOUR WRITINGS?
What I expect from my public and from the person standing closest to me is appreciation. Not in the social sense of success, but rather in deeper sense: I want them to see, to perceive what I have within me – the singularity and uniqueness of my perspective of the world. Of course this uniqueness changes: it’s keen when we’re young, and it weakens as we progress though life.
AFTER RECEIVING SO MUCH PRAISE FOR YOUR ART AND GATHERING A FOLLOWING, HOW DO YOU PREVENT FAME FROM INFLUENCING YOUR ART?
Personally, the public acknowledgement doesn’t affect me much; if it had, I would have mastered my career better. Many people all over the world may enjoy and collect my photographs, but the place I occupy in the art world is infinitesimal.
AS AN ARTIST, INSPIRATION IS A NECESSITY. WHERE DO YOU FIND YOUR INSPIRATION?
There’s no recipe for finding inspiration. Traveling and driving fast with the music turned all the way up aren’t always enough! You can go years without having a huge inspiration – it’s always a surprise when it comes. You have to live and accumulate joy and suffering, even boredom, in the sense of the Romantics. You have to know it all.
WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTERISTIC FOR AN ARTIST TO HAVE?
Without hesitation: a sense of necessity. Produce nothing that doesn’t hearken to a compelling need for expression. Sincerity alone isn’t enough to guarantee depth in a work of art.
DESPITE THE PRAISE YOU RECEIVED, YOU SUSPENDED YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY IN 1997. DO YOU MISS TAKING PICTURES?
I suspended my 20-years’ work in photographical production for reasons of necessity, loyalty to my ‘first’ inspiration and to avoid repeating myself and getting bored. But photography still accompanies me more or less as the illustration of my life, my writing.
WHAT IS YOUR IDEA OF BEAUTY? WHAT MAKES SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL?
For me, art has to do with beauty, and in my pictures I try to create the conditions that lead to that dynamic instant in which beauty and happiness come together in a balanced way. Because my work is collaborative and democratic, we can see these young people looking at their world in a way that reflects the unique beauty of their innocence. And then, during the exhibitions that followed the photo shoots, some would tell me, “This is the most beautiful day of my youth.”
____
Show
*
p.s. Hey. ** Corey Heiferman, Hi. When you find the right state, I highly recommend the input, obviously. I seem to be some kind of super lucky person in that I’ve never had to make time or deliberately organise my time to write. I’ve always been driven to write and work hard on it without ever really becoming a workaholic. Everything else gets organised around the writing kind of naturally. Apart from a couple of gigs, my paid work/jobs have always involved writing, journalism and catalog essays and so on, so I’m never torn too far afield. Interesting about your disappointment in that turn in ‘120 Days’. I haven’t (re)read it in ages, but you know it’s just a first draft that Sade never revised, etc., and it’s no doubt full of narrative try-outs, and it’s definitely full of mistakes — boys having their balls cut off and then having balls again two pages later, etc. Yeah, in Europe, in the best cases, artists like Fassbinder and even ‘weirder’ would never be considered basket cases. That helps. Well, if you’ll be in NYC at the tip of September, you should come see ‘PGL’ at Lincoln Center on Sept. 5th. I read at the Whitney on the 7th. I’m only reading 5 – 8 minutes, but there are others reading DW’s work too, and it’ll probably be a good event. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Yes, I remember that. And I still think Bresson must have been gaming Cukor for some reason when he wrote that. It’s curious, but it makes literally no sense. Speaking of, there’s a Bresson retrospective on at Cinematheque Francaise right now, and on Sunday they’re showing a new, clean, struck print of ‘Four Nights of a Dreamer’ for the first time anywhere in decades, and you can bet I’m going to be so there. ** Bill, Hi. You’re off again! Where to? Perhaps you’re there now. Where are you? You must be quite happy to have the paid work break. In-flights knives of note? Enjoy, enjoy! ** Jamie, What did you eat for dinner? I had a fatal sandwich and a humus plate. How was the birthday thing? I assume it and the dinner were the same event? Very happy you enjoyed meeting Aki’s music. My Friday was pretty good. Met up with Torbjorn, Torbjorn’s friend and my new friend Sabrina, and Zac, and we did the Pompidou. Fun enough, though the Ryoji Ikeda show was not his best stuff. Then had a long blab fest over coffee. Then Zac and finished the script talk, and now I will start on the revisions. Late last night we finally got the ARTE script notes, and I haven’t looked at them yet out of severe dread. My weekend looks like script work, finding out how distressing the ARTE notes are, more visiting/art with Torbjorn and Sabrina, and, most excitingly, seeing one of my favorite Bresson films (‘Four Nights of a Dreamer’) that’s being projected for the first time anywhere in the world in many ages. So, not too bad. How was yours, buddy? Ha. May it lift your current life skyward like Dorothy’s house in ‘Wizard of Oz’ and plunk it down in some technicolor eden. Head of a pin love, Dennis. ** Steve Erickson, P.A. down and sound to go! Best of luck. Ah, your essay is ours. Everyone, Steve has written what seems totally guaranteed to be a fascinating article for Fandor called “UNFRIENDED: DARK WEB” AND THE AGE OF TECHNOPHOBIA, and don’t let your weekend cross the finish line without reading it. GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE is my favorite Godard, so its plaudits were/are hugely hopeful. No, haven’t heard that new Griffit Vigo. Thanks for letting me know it exists. I like harsh and forbidding, as you no doubt know, so, yeah, curious. Nice gift certificate score. FUR IMMER! That’s my favorite DAF. It’s their sweetest album in a way. I’d like to hear that again. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi, Dóra! My week was mostly pretty good, all in all. I just told Jamie what’s going on, so scroll back up a teeny bit to find out. Things go pretty well, I would say, for now. No, as I said up above, we only got the ARTE notes last night, so I guess I have to read them very shortly, and then we’ll know how bad it’s going to be, and then we’ll have to meet/talk and make our decisions. Oh, god. ‘ … the sayings of White Eagle’ … boy, that does sound daunting. But, yes, the technical part will no doubt end up being quite useful, I’m sure. Non-eventfulness can equal a kind of peace with excitingness mixed in, so I hope yours conforms to that theoretical model. You have the best weekend ever, my friend! ** Misanthrope, Do bitches get especially tired? Yeah, didn’t think Aki’s stuff and your ears were a marriage made in heaven, but thanks for trying him out. We got a teensy-weentsy bit of rain here yesterday. A dusting of rain. I hope your weekend involves your nose planted on the non-grindstone of your already legendary novel. ** Simon, Hi, Simon! I’m happy you returned! You’re in Germany. It’s warm here too, probably not very differently warm. My friend Zac and I are doing a little road trip into the western part of Germany to go visit amusement parks (Europa-Park, Phantasialand, and maybe others if we can find others) next month. Where are you in that big country? I’ll happily check out your list and give you my … whatever, thoughts. Give me a day, or I guess two since it’s the weekend, to respond because the thing with writing the p.s. is I have to keep going and not get sidetracked to get it done. So brief rain check. I look forward to it. You have an excellent weekend. ** Right. Many many years ago I did a blog post about Bernard Faucon, so long ago that I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be up to speed enough with the current blog’s standards, so I made a new BF thing. See what you think. See you on Monday.
Now available in North America 
*
Dennis, Thanks. And I can tell you that Faucon’s work is right up my alley. I really like it. People are always after the “candid” shot, but there’s definitely something to be said for the constructed image. I’m actually going to go and explore further now.
Yes, bitches get very tired. (Btw, I use the term “bitch” universally for everyone, especially myself. Like I’ll do something stupid and think, sometimes aloud, “You’re a stupid bitch!” Or I’ll just think, “Man, I’m one tired bitch.” (That’s something I hear my mom say a lot, hahaha.))
Hahaha, legendary indeed. Thanks for that preemptively. I can only hope.
Well, we were talking about things being logical the other day, and that’s what happened with my 12th chapter. While this is in no way a “realist” novel, the dialogue has to be realistic. In this particular chapter, the characters were saying things I wanted them to say but not really things they WOULD say, if that makes sense. My other stuff, yeah, it’d pass muster easily. This one, nah, it’s gotta be more “realistic.” What would this character say in this situation, based on what we know of him/her so far? That type of thing. I’m glad I gave myself time to think it over.
The second half of the novel will be free of those constraints, so it really has to have those constraints now in this first half. If that makes sense. The first half is more “exterior” in its presentation, while the second half will be “interior.”
So far, so good, though. And thank you again for the support and encouragement.
Bernard Faucon is genuinely creepy.
Bresson wasn’t gaming Cukor at all. As the correspondences reveal Cukor caught “Diary of a Country Priest” the week it opened in Paris. He went to see it with someone who was a friend of Bresson’s and rtold him to tell Bresson if there’s any way he could help him out he would .So Bresson wrote Cukor and asked him for helpwith getting a U.S. distributor for the film — which Cukor very gladly did, sending off a ton of letters to all the distributors he knew. As for Natalie Wood, for all his proclaimed disdain of what he called “Theatrical” film he attended it constantly. “Cahiers” went so far as to hire a detective who discovered that Bresson not only went to first-run releases but even cheap Kung-Fu action films. That he was taken with Natalie Wood is no surprise. Legions of gay men (myself included) adore her and Bresson was a goner for her charms.
He is actually pretty normal in person. Super kind. He studied under Jacques Martin which is pretty wild. He is a bit quirky, perhaps a better analogy. He lives a very Buddhist kind of life with a circle of few friends. He has quite a astonishing , and tragic family. The only surviving son at this point. Read the Early days from his website and some of it will Make Sense.
This is boring, because pre-1968 Godard is as accessible as he got and there are far too many people (such as Tarantino) who think WEEKEND was the last good film he ever made, but PIERROT LE FOU is my favorite. But he made masterpieces long after that: NUMERO DEUX, PASSION, HISTOIRE(S) DU CINEMA , NOUVELLE VAGUE, JLG/JLG, NOTRE MUSIQUE and of course GOODBYE.
If Bresson was a fan of cheesy kung fu films, Tarkovsky adored THE TERMINATOR. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Eli Roth loves DAISIES & PUNISHMENT PARK, although I doubt he shares their politics.
My cable box seems to be broken. I am going to replace the batteries in my remote just to see if that’s the reason I can’t get cable TV right now, but since the power button glows red when I press it, I think the battery power is still fresh. Even when I manually press the power button on the cable box, nothing happens and I get no image on the tV. I’m afraid I’ll have to get a repairman to come over here, which I know from past experience is a total pain and right now will require me to move my CD player and about 150 CDs temporarily so the repairman can walk around my bedroom.
Film Forum showed a beautiful new print of FOUR NIGHTS during their last Bresson retro. I don’t know this film is so hard to see in the US, never having received a video release or a theatrical re-release, but I assume there are legal reasons.
My comments lately seem to be eaten up / eaten up which might be this blog’s Bermuda effect or might actually be them disappearing. Either way, another device right now so fingers crossed???
These photos are surreal. Tonally and compositionslly they remind me of the unsettled elements of Hereditary from this year tho ofc all comparisons are reductive….. I read THE WEAKLINGS XL in 3 days and that’s my only update, really – quite amazing stuff, incredible collection!
Hi. First off, I just fucking love Faucon. I didn’t know of ”the obsession with closing, The End of The Image” damn, thank you for this deep insight. I gotta say, the days celebrating the these artists are my personal favorite aspect of your blog, maybe it has to do with my own field of obsession with individualism.
My music-list thing was just a way of introducing myself to you. I would love to hear your words on it of course, but to share it with you was my main end.
Oh wow. I live in West Germany! I live ‘n study (psychology, ugh) in Düsseldorf, the home of Krautrock and Joseph Beuys, to be more precise.
Your choice of the amusement parks is fantastic! They are really the best ones here, so I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time. To try to be a bit more, uh, useful, I would recommend you two of my favorite anti-amusement-parks (sorry haha)…
Tiger & Turtle (Magic Mountain)
https://youtu.be/AIjzjMB0Ex0
To delve deeper into the architectural aspect, The Tetrahedorn
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahedron_in_Bottrop
That’s it. Deprived from all the innocent fun, people actually have to do-it-themselves and walk through these “rollercoasters”, to have their fun. But anti-fun is fun! …I guess.
Ah, and there’s a lot of great museums with great exhibitions as well, so if you’re interested please do let me know and I’ll list them all here so you can pick up your favorites, haha!
Have an excellent weekend as well sir!
Hey Dennis, I’m not familiar with Faucon’s work. Very intriguing, though (comparing apples and oranges, sorry) I keep thinking I prefer Gisele’s mannikins and how she works with them.
I’m in the mysterious orient visiting family. The flight didn’t go too badly, a so-so doc on bourbon (whisky), episodes of Legion (FX sci-fi series), the latest over-the-top installment of Kingsman, the amusing Bond parody franchise. And a few early Millhauser short stories. Are you heading down to Venice for your Biennale events?
Bill
No problem – maybe the curse on your blog is just letting you see what you need to see at the time you need to see it 🙂
Nice Winter memory! It hasn’t snowed for ages here (bloody global warming) but my favourite Winter memory was after my family and I got back from our one and only overseas trip (Paris for two weeks) when I was ten years old and we touch down in our home town and its snowing so heavily that the plan almost cant land – but it does, and it is very beautiful and welcoming and cozy.
Never heard of this photographer but crazy 1900s feels. Will investigate further thanks to you.
Dearest Dennis, I’m going to take a break from commenting but I’ll be back soon! Hopefully next week. My words need to refill, so much is happening my planes are barely landing! Talk to you soon though, even though I’m going to be away from your blog, please feel free to leave questions or conversations for me – be thinking of ya. Sending icy kisses and well wishes x
The last 42 minutes of the greatest motion picture ever made. On a related note, Jean-Louis Trintignant has announced that he has fallen into a state of severe depression and wants to die.
Dennis,
You usually stump me with these artist features but not today, I know Faucon’s work! I bought a Faucon postcard when I was 21 and living in New York City. I saw it at some small card shop and was fascinated by it. It’s of a boy lying on a beach towel, with another boy, a mannequin, leaning over him. Every now and again I would stare at it, it seemed like some kind of magic totem, especially because I was so young at the time and was still trying to figure things out… did I like girls, did I like boys, etc….
I still have that postcard, all these years later, so thank you for today!
Are you still trying to go to Tokyo sometime in October? I will be there on and around Halloween, which is an awesome night to be in Tokyo. Please come around then and we can hang out! I had a drink with Paul Curran when I was in Tokyo in October 2016!!
Tokyo is the pinnacle of human achievement, I don’t think we can go much further, civilization-wise.
Dennis, I continue to work on my new novel daily. The plot is very complicated and it’s exhausting planning it out. Some days I feel it’s a complete mess, a totally confused failure. But I keep moving on because without my writing I’m basically a nothing, a cipher who works in a cubicle. It’s my books that make me real, lol. They’re the only real thing about me.
How is the ARTE challenge going? Will you rewrite their changes? It sounds like writing a TV show is all about compromise… I don’t think I could do such a thing, so my hats off to you. Happy Sunday Dennis!
Much love,
James
Hey D! What’s up?
Bernard Faucon is for sure my favourite photographer, but by heck is he not possibly my favourite artist? He might well be, although I’m thinking that talk of favourites is maybe childish of me. For some reason I found it funny seeing him referred to as a surrealist, but I suppose it makes some kind of sense. His photos are sublime. Something about sometimes having a real boy amongst the mannequins. Thanks for this lovely post.
How was your weekend? Did the Bresson film work its magic on you? How was the ARTE email? I hope it didn’t cast a shadow over things and it’s workable.
My Friday friend’s birthday dinner ended up being a vegan place and the food was like vegan food from 20 years ago before we all realised that vegan food could be great. But it was a nice night. Went to an anti-racist protest yesterday, which was a bit scary, and Hannah’s boss’s garden party today, which was a bit pish. And WG last night, which was a joy. Hannah handed in her mostly complete Spark/Quin/Kavan/Brooke-Rose essay , (the one she got funding for) and it blew us away. I’ll send you a link when it goes online.
How’s the movie script?
Have a lovely Monday. Hope it makes you giggle, groove, gleeful, glad, grateful & giddy (but in a pleasant way).
Conrtabombastic love,
Jamie
Faucon immediately strikes me as a very DC’s artist, if such a thing can be said to exist. I was unaware of his existence until this weekend and I’m very happy to be introduced!
Still here in Leeds and I’m probably down here a bit longer ie at least another week. I plan to begin a writing project sometime soon, but will need my own space to do that. Nothing concrete planned as yet but the good news is that my benefits have just increased due to my being unable to work… so there’s really no excuse not to use the time creatively. I’m hoping the heatwave subsides too.
Right now I’m reading Ottessa Moshfegh – My Year of Rest and Relaxation which has been getting some major press coverage of late. The book has such a great concept: a rich, beautiful gallery assistant goes into a prescription drug-induced hibernation in a pre-9/11 Manhattan. My take is that the satire gets rather too broad after a hypnotic first chapter and it does kind of break the spell, sadly. Gorgeous painting (attributed to “Circle of Jacques-Louis David”) on the cover, though.
I hope I’m not double-posting due to your blog doing that weird scrubbing bubbles thing
Slate now has a regular column called “Pre-Woke Watching,” where writers talk about how they now have repudiated films they used to like based on their current political views (and, at best, life experiences – the current column is about THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT and written by a lesbian couple who discuss how their actual use of a sperm donor made the film problematic for them.) Who came up that title? it sounds like something a right-winger who hates “SJWs” would invent as a parody. I’ve been trying to successfully pitch a new idea to Slate’s current culture editor – he did not go for “The Year In Music And Drugs” and “Five Hip-Hop Albums From 2018 That Are Just As Good As Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN.” (which would not be phrased a contrarian attack on DAMN.) and have not won over, but if you read Inkoo Kang’s look back at BORAT from a post-Trump perspective, which is not part of “Post-Woke Watching” but may as well be given what she wrote, I can see why I’m not a good fit. Pretty much everything they publish on LGBTQ issues is painfully “queer” too.
Is there actual makeup on the dolls’ faces?
I think Faucon’s answer to the first interview question is telling:
“….Of course this uniqueness changes: it’s keen when we’re young, and it weakens as we progress though life.”
I think there’s at least a good case to be made for everyone always being unique but becoming more distinctive as they age, having gone through more of their own experiences and having the memories scars and wrinkles to show for it etc.
When reading your artist bio posts lately I’ve been thinking at least as much about interview questions as answers. There seems to be no correspondence between how interesting I find a question and its answer.
Well oh darn I’m scheduled to fly out of New York literally the night before the Lincoln Center event…
No, he does not use make up on them. He did dress them very symbolically though.