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Malick Sidibé: Mali’s star photographer

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Witness History: Malick Sidibé: Mali’s star photographer

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14/06/2023 GMT

BBC World Service - Witness History, Malick Sidibé: Mali’s star photographer

Malick Sidibé photographed life in Mali after its independence from France in 1960.

Malick Sidibé's most famous photographs show black and white scenes of young people partying in the capital Bamako in 1960.

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)

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