Malick Sidibé: Chemises

Malick Sidibé is a West African photographer celebrated internationally for his portraits and candid photographs from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s that bear witness to the social, cultural, and political transformation of Mali, which gained its independence from France in 1960. The youth culture of music, dancing, and fashion exploded in this once-conservative nation and Sidibé’s ubiquitous lens chronicled this rapid shift. Photographing in nightclubs and at parties in the capital city of Bamako, Sidibé developed a uniquely loose and improvisational style that reflected the liveliness of the events and his stylish subjects.

This exhibition included various forms of Sidibé’s output, including over fifty recent enlargements of studio portraits, a group of small vintage prints displayed in hand-painted frames, and numerous small proof prints mounted on colored office folders, the chemises of the exhibition’s title. The exhibition was organized by diChromA Photography in collaboration with DePaul Museum of Art. There are works that appeared in this exhibition that were loans to the Loeb and therefore do not appear on this website.