(Soloba, Mali, 1935- )
Lives and works in Bamako, Mali
Malick Sidibé has operated a commercial
photography studio in Bamako, the capital of Mali, since the country's
independence from France in 1960. Following independence, and as
Mali and the rest of Africa began to emerge politically and culturally
from the colonial period, Sidibé experienced incredible demand as
a portrait photographer whose clients were a rapidly growing middle
class. He made tens of thousands of portraits for sitters who were
eager to assert their post-colonial identities. While known mostly
for his portraits of young people in the dance clubs of Bamako during
the sixties and seventies, the images here form another part of his
work. These formal portraits of children are among the earliest generation
of child portraits taken for and by Africans themselves, as the people
of Mali began to appropriate the photographic portrait as a means
of expressing themselves. Each image is hand printed, mounted to
hand-painted glass frames, and signed and identified by Sidibé,
and each is a poignant image of both the infant child and the infant
nation. |
