At SIGMA in Columbia Circle, the new exhibition by French photographer Bernard Faucon runs through early August. Faucon is best known for staged photographic worlds that sit somewhere between memory and fiction. Here, that idea is anchored around childhood, not as nostalgia, but as something constructed, fragile, and slightly unreal.
The works on view include his well-known tableaux featuring mannequin-like figures placed in carefully built outdoor scenes. They look like childhood memories staged after the fact: artificial, but not empty.
The exhibition space itself does a lot of the work. SIGMA's glass-walled venue opens directly onto the surrounding greenery of Columbia Circle, which in its second phase has become more lush and shaded. Trees sit right up against the exhibition views, and the outside doesn't feel like a backdrop so much as part of the show.
It's a quiet, fairly minimal presentation, but the combination of staged photography, analog textures, and the slow visual rhythm of the space makes it easy to linger a bit longer than planned. Columbia Circle is already one of those places where you end up walking more than expected, and this show just gives you another reason to stay in the loop a little longer.
