Africa continues to WOW the world in a new renaissance that dips into the past to taste the future! African art is finding its global voice & redefining the genre with modern & futuristic elements juxtaposed with the glories of Africa’s intricate past renaissance that influenced all aspects of world culture as we know it.
“In the West people have to have all this stuff to be happy, but we don’t have this system. But physical poverty doesn’t mean moral poverty. In Africa we have moral riches and happiness in our hearts.”
The eye of Bamako AKA Malick Sidibé is one of those rare photographers who chooses to stay in the past while being relevant in & for the future. Malick Sidibé was announced as the 2010 first prize winner in arts and entertainment singles, for his fashion layout in the New York Times, entitled “Prints and the Revolution“ at the 53rd annual World Press Photo Contest. Sidibé works strictly in black & white & film, no color or digital in this world renown photographer’s repertoire.
“I stick with black and white, and film,” he says. “It’s what I know. And I can do my own developing and printing. A good photographer should always do that.”
Sidibé brings the vibrant youth culture of Mali in the 1950’s, 1960’s & 1970’s to the global stage as art/photography lovers, global African cultural connoisseurs & even New York Times readers devour the breath taking passion & love of life of an Africa that few get to see in a world that often focuses on the darkness of poverty, disease, corruption & war in Africa, labeling it the dark continent without ever seeing its true light. Sidibé showcases what we, Africans, call the “Real Africa”, the everyday Africa where joy & love of life trumps any obstacle, hardship or man made & man delivered darkness of evil. Sidibé features the youth culture of fashion, music and dance influenced by the rock n roll, bebop, funk, jazz, zoot suits, voluminous dresses, bell bottoms, beatnik style, Harlem renaissance, say it loud I am Black & I am proud era of the 50’s, 60’s & 70’s western culture that was heavily pro-Africa, as the exotic playground for wealthy White westerners or as the ancestral heart & soul for Black people all over the world, which found the same love & influence reciprocated in Africa by Africans. Sidibé shows that even in black & white, the colors of Africa, the black gold of the sun, still shines.
Malick Sidibé will showcasing some never seen before prints amongst many other African & non-African photographers featured in the global traveling exhibit Africa: See You, See Me .
To be a good photographer, Sidibé says, you need to have “a talent to observe, and to know what you want. You have to choose the shapes and the movements that please you, that look beautiful.” Equally, you need “to be friendly, sympathique. It’s very important to be able to put people at their ease. It’s a world, someone’s face. When I capture it, I see the future of the world. I believe with my heart and soul in the power of the image, but you also have to be sociable. I’m lucky. It’s in my nature.”