africa.photography: on their own terms

Snip from American Suburb X review from 2000 of Malick Sidibe’s self-titled book

The result, as Magnin’s book copiously documents, was a cultural episode during which African pop culture defied its hidden or secondhand status (always a Western cliche, but sometimes a legitimate label) and busted out all over the place. But not in terms of the now commonplace imagery, of “native” Africans in traditional dress bobbing and keening for the benefit of CNN. Instead, what Sidibe documented was an after-hours declaration of confident self-styling, influenced by Western modes, but made fresh by free adaptation.

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Confidence, energy, and complexity of spirit are not concepts routinely applied to African culture these days. The continent, with few exceptions, is viewed either as an intractable problem, a fractious war zone, or the place where all the deadly virus come from. Sidibe’s photography—culled from his constant forays into clubs of Bamako from 1948 to 1976—counteracts this dour and borderline racist narrative, in the most effective way possible: by showing people having a good time on their own terms.

Nuit de Noel, 1963. © Malick Sidibe. From Artnet site