Author Description

"Malian Portrait Photography showcases work made by some of the most important artists working in the Malian photographic tradition. Photographs by Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé appear alongside those made by other artists such as Hamidou Maïga, Abdourahmane Sakaly, and Tijani Àdìgún Sitou. The photographic community in Mali arose following the country's liberation from French colonialism in 1960. Eager to establish their own style, these photographers and their subjects blended new ways of posing in contemporary attire with props from popular culture, in front of backdrops made from traditional African fabrics. The resulting portraits announced a visual vocabulary that was uniquely Malian and that demanded a place for a thoroughly modern West African identity within the art historical canon. The portraits also paved the way for the West African photographic community that emerged after this period, which continues to influence portraiture made on the continent of Africa, and the rest of the world, to the present day. The thirty works in the exhibition include rare vintage prints. Several have handmade frames by photographer Malick Sidibé." -- Dorsky Museum website