By John Owoo
(In Rabat – Morocco)
Photographs by the late Malian photographer Malick Sidibé who created waves with works that are characterized by emotions, spurts of enthusiasm and joy during the transition of Mali from colonial rule to an independent country.
Currently on display at the King Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in the Moroccan capital Rabat, his works also created the space for numerous activities that took place in the years after independence from France in 1960, depicting liveliness and energy that actually helped to shape Malian youth culture.
Titled “La Promesse de Soi”, this monographic exhibition showcases portrait subjects who affirm their ambitions and desire for social rank while embodying it through photography. Indeed, party scenes immortalized by Sidibé from the 1960s to the 1980s stand out in the elaborate exhibition hall.
Equally on show are images relating to family frescos, which are captured in and out of his studio, which cover important events – childbirth, birthdays and marriage ceremonies among others. Consequently, models eventually become actors and actresses as the images are revealed in all magnificence while asserting beauty and success.
Sidibé, who died in 2016 set his attention on studio portraits alongside a background of the fabrics in vogue during the period while marshaling a black-and-white linoleum carpet on which he took pictures with diverseprops including motorcycles, record players, cars and television sets.
His lively pictures of young people at parties, sports events and swimming / picnicking on the shores of RiverNiger, which is the main river in West Africa as well as dancing in nightclubs, showcase the energy and life in postcolonial Mali.
Undeniably, the metropolitan, stylish and animated images of Sidibé contributed to the emergence of the contemporary African and fundamentally changed the idea of black beauty in fashion and society over the years.
Sidibé’s photographs have been exhibited in numerous group exhibitions, including the first Rencontres de la Photographie Africaine (Bamako 1994); In/Sight: African Photographers, 1940 to date, Guggenheim Museum (1996); ¡Flash Afrique!, Kunsthalle Wien, (Vienna 2001).
Others are You Look Beautiful Like That: The Portrait Photographs of Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge Massachusetts (2001); traveled to Hammer Museum of Art, University of California, Los Angeles [2002]; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida (2002–03) and High Museum of Art, Atlanta (2003).
The rest are The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, (1945–1994), Museum Villa Stuck (Munich 2002); traveled to the Martin-Gropius-Bau, (Berlin 2001); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2001), MoMA PS1, (New York 2002) and the Venice Biennale (2008).
Since 1995, he has served as the president of the Groupement national des photographes professionnels du Mali. In 2003, he became the first African photographer to receive the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography.
He was also awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, Venice Biennale (2007); Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement, International Center of Photography, New York (2008) and Baume and Mercier Award, Photo España (2009).
The Museum takes advantage of Morocco’s geo-strategic position as a crossroad between Europe and Africa and tries to play an important role in the cultural history of both continents through the dissemination of arts and culture.
Masters such as Caesar, Giacometti, Goya, Picasso, El Glaoui, Gharbaoui, Chaibia Talal, Delacroix and Cartier-Bresson among others have been exhibited at the museum as part of events and retrospectives.
