9 min listen
Malick Sidibé: Mali’s star photographer
FromWitness History
ratings:
Length:
9 minutes
Released:
Jun 14, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
The Malian photographer, Malick Sidibé, is one of Africa’s most celebrated artists.
His most famous photographs show black and white scenes of young people partying in the capital Bamako in the joyful, confident era after Mali’s independence from France in 1960.
In the 1990s, a chance encounter with a French curator brought Sidibé’s work international acclaim.
The wider world had been used to seeing a narrow range of images from Africa, so when Sidibé’s work went on show in Western galleries, audiences were stunned by the exuberant world they revealed.
In 2022, Manthia Diawara, the Malian filmmaker and professor at New York University, who knew Malick when he was a roving nightlife photographer spoke, to Viv Jones.
(Photo: Danser le Twist, 1963 by Malick Sidibé. Credit: Galerie MAGNIN-A, Paris)
His most famous photographs show black and white scenes of young people partying in the capital Bamako in the joyful, confident era after Mali’s independence from France in 1960.
In the 1990s, a chance encounter with a French curator brought Sidibé’s work international acclaim.
The wider world had been used to seeing a narrow range of images from Africa, so when Sidibé’s work went on show in Western galleries, audiences were stunned by the exuberant world they revealed.
In 2022, Manthia Diawara, the Malian filmmaker and professor at New York University, who knew Malick when he was a roving nightlife photographer spoke, to Viv Jones.
(Photo: Danser le Twist, 1963 by Malick Sidibé. Credit: Galerie MAGNIN-A, Paris)
Released:
Jun 14, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
The Cuyahoga River Fire: In June 1969 the heavily polluted Cuyahoga River, in Ohio in the USA, caught fire by Witness History