You Look Beautiful Like That Opens

The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Monday, July 8, 2024


You Look Beautiful Like That Opens



LONDON, ENGLAND.- The National Portrait Gallery presents “You Look Beautiful Like That - The Portrait Photographs of Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé,” on view through 8 June 2003. The exhibition was organized by the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University. You Look Beautiful Like That presents the work of Seydou Keïta (1921-2001) and Malick Sidibé (born c.1935), commercial photographers working in Bamako, Mali, from the 1940s to the 1970s. Since the early 1990s, they have received international recognition for their remarkable and engaging portraits of members of the local community.
Keïta and Sidibé’s portraits were commissioned on a small scale, by the sitters, for distribution to their friends and family. They were originally produced in a postcard format for a private audience and often commissioned to mark special family occasions. The names and professions of many of the sitters have been lost but their identities, aspirations, and fantasies are communicated through their portraits, by their clothing, props and poses. They wear their best clothes or the latest fashions and hold their most treasured possessions - radios, motorbikes, animals, sewing machines - as they pose for the camera. The portraits reveal the clients’ status within the community and reflect their desire to be seen as cosmopolitan.
The title of this exhibition comes from a favorite expression in Bambara, the language widely spoken in Mali, "i ka nyè tan" which means "you look beautiful like that" and reflects the photographer’s goal of making their subjects look good. The exhibition features 72 black-and-white images including 14 postcard sized prints showing the original format of the commissioned portraits. Keïta and Sidibé’s work is also presented in the context of early European and African portrait conventions in West Africa.
From its introduction into Africa, the camera had largely been used by Europeans and was instrumental in affirming the stereotypes through which the West interpreted Africa and its people - typical subjects were missionaries saving "savages", or anthropological and ethnographic studies. In contrast, Keïta and Sidibé collaborated with their sitters to produce images that had significance within their own society.
Commercial portrait photography first came to Mali in the 1930s. Keïta was one of the first African photographers to work in Bamako, beginning in the 1940s. Although clearly connected to long-established conventions of studio portraiture, his portraits have a unique expressive style. Sidibé adapted that style for a new generation. As portrait conventions and societal roles became more flexible in the 1960s and 1970s, the subjects of his photographs took a more active, often theatrical, role in constructing their portraits.
Keïta and Sidibé were working in Bamako in the decades before and after Mali’s independence from France in 1960. They produced tens of thousands of portraits for members of their communities. The resulting body of work forms a remarkable social document and a unique record of a community undergoing considerable social change.
Seydou Keïta spent the early years of his life apprenticing with his father as a furniture-maker. It was in the 1930s, as Bamako grew into a modern city, that he began to experiment with photography. In 1948 Keïta opened a studio in a lively part of the city. His clients were members of Bamako’s elite class including office clerks, shopkeepers, employees of the colonial government, and politicians. In 1962 Keïta became the official photographer of Mali’s new socialist government, documenting events such as official visits and meetings of heads of state. Although he continued his portrait work, a year or two later the administration pressured him to close his commercial studio. He retired from his official position in 1977.
Malick Sidibé studied jewelry making in Bamako in 1952. After graduating in 1955, he was hired by French photographer Gérard Guillat to decorate his shop. Guillat later took him on as an apprentice. Sidibé bought his first camera in 1956 and the following year began photographing private events for clients in addition to making portraits. He opened his own studio in 1962. While portraits were his primary business, Sidibé continued to do reportage until the late 1970s. He has also been repairing cameras since 1957 and every inch of his studio is taken up with cameras, parts, and thousands of negatives. Like other photographers of his generation, Sidibé found his practice undermined by the emergence of color photography in the 1980s. His studio, however, continues to be an important neighborhood meeting place.










Today's News

July 8, 2024

Städel Museum presents some 80 paintings and sculptures by 26 women artists

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston opens 'Meiji Modern: Fifty Years of New Japan'

Christie's unveils Alberto Giacometti's Buste sur la selle de l'atelier

Tate Britain will stage Art Now: Steph Huang

Exhibition offers new take on Dalí 100 years after the founding of Surrealism

Royal Academy of Arts opens 'In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900-1930s'

Jon Landau, producer of 'Titanic' and 'Avatar,' dies at 63

Pace announces European exhibition program autumn/winter 2024

V&A opens major exhibition exploring the career of leading British fashion model, Naomi Campbell

First large-scale exhibition of Mary Cassatt's work in the U.S. in 25 years on view in Philadelphia

KÖNIG GALERIE opens an exhibition of new works by Guy Yanai

First major survey exhibition of the Aotearoa-born, Melbourne-based artist Brent Harris opens at AGSA

'Yoshida: Three Generations of Japanese Printmaking' on view at Dulwich Picture Gallery

Marian Goodman Gallery Los Angeles to open Jongsuk Yoon's first solo exhibition in the U.S.

The Legendary Trunks: A European Private Collection Sale totals $2.5M

Marta Herford Museum of Art and Design opens 'Between Pixel and Pigment: Hybrid Painting in Post-digital Times'

"A Legacy of Giving" exhibition highlights the power of philanthropy

Nyunmiti Burton's monumental painting Kungkarangkalpa commemorated in a new collectable stamp set released by Australia

Romance bookstores are booming, dishing 'all the hot stuff you can imagine'

Actor Joe Pantoliano brings his on-screen history to Heritage Auctions

2025 Season: Exhibitions and cinema at Jeu de Paume

Christie's and the Paul G. Allen Estate present Gen One: Innovations from the Paul G. Allen Collection

'Kill' review: The title says it all. Over and over again.




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful