ICONIC MALIAN PHOTOGRAPHER MALICK SIDIBÉ PASSES AT 80

“It’s a world, someone’s face. When I capture it, I see the future of the world.” 

The award-winning Malian photographer, Malick Sidibe, who’s dynamic images changed a nation has died at the age of 80.

A pioneer by craft and artist by heart, Sidibe’s black and while shots captured the energy, hope and nightlife of Mali’s post-colonial period in the 1960s, garnering him a number of awards and global fame. Critics says his vibrant imagery of life in the Malian capital of Bamako in the 1960/70’s changed the view of the West African nation word-wide.

“It’s a great loss for Mali,” said the country’s culture minister N’Diaye Ramatoulaye Diallo. “He was part of our cultural heritage. The whole of Mali is in mourning.”

Starting school at the late age of 10, he became known amongst his teachers and classmates as a gifted artist, and won a place at the École des Artisans Soudanais in Bamako in 1952.

The “national treasure” then got his first break working in the studio of Gérard Guillat, Bamako’s leading society ­photographer. Sidibé spent his nights working the night club scene gaining popularity by capturing party-goers in their element.  Soon followed his own studio opening in 1962 and the endearing title as “the Eye of Bamako”.

Amassing over two decades worth work in tens of thousands of negatives, his photographs can now be found  in collections across the world, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Getty Museum in California.

“No African artist has done more to enhance photography’s stature in the region, contribute to its history, enrich its image archive or increase our awareness of the textures and transformations of African culture in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st than Malick Sidibé,”said critic and curator Robert Storr.

In 2007, he became the first African and the first photographer to be awarded the Golden Lion lifetime achievement award at the Venice Biennale.  Most recently, he was selected as the World Press Photo winner in 2010 for a fashion shoot commissioned by the New York Times.

In a 2010 Guardian interview, Sidibé shared his thoughts on being a good photographer lies in the “talent to observe, and to know what you want” but also in being friendly. “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,” he said.

RIP Malick Sidibé. “The Eye of Bamako” will forever live on.