Born around 1935 in Soloba, Mali. Lives and works in Bamako, Mali.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2007
  Photographs, Malick Sidibé. Afronova, Johannesburg, South Africa

2005
  Photographs : 1960-2004. Jack Shainman Gallery, New York - USA

2004 - 2005
 Studio Malick. La Filature, Scène Nationale, Mulhouse - France

2004
 Malick Sidibé. Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp - Belgium

2004
 Malick Sidibé. Museet for Fotokunst, Brandts Klaedefabrik, Odense - Denmark

2004
 Malick Sidibé. Exhibition from Hasselblad Center Stockholm - Sweden

2004
  Malick Sidibé. Exhibition from Hasselblad Center Centro de Artes Visuais Coimbra - Portugal

2004
  Malick Sidibé. Exhibition from Hasselblad Center Kristianstad - Sweden

2003-2004
  Malick Sidibé - 2003 Hasselblad Award Winner Hasselblad Center Göteborg Museum of Art, Gothenburg - Sweden

2003
  Malick Sidibé / Seydou Keïta. Hackelbury Fine Art Ltd., London - Great Britain

2003
 Malick Sidibé. Musée Pincé, Angers - France

2003
 Malick Sidibé. Conrad Gallery, Düsseldorf - Germany

2003
 Malick Sidibé. Kennedy Boesky Photographs, New York - USA

2003
 Studio Malick. Jack Shainman Gallery New York - USA

2001 - 2003
 You look beautiful like that : The Portrait of Photographs of Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé. Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown - USA
 National Portrait Gallery London - Great Britain
 Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach - USA
 UCLA Hammer Museum, University of California, Los Angeles - USA
 Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge - USA

2002
 Malick Sidibé. Galerie Claude Samuel, Paris - France

2002
 Malick Sidibé. Hackelbury Fine Art Ltd., London - Great Britain

2002
 Malick Sidibé. Patrick Painter, Inc Los Angeles - USA

2001
 Malick Sidibé. Stedelijk Museum. Amsterdam - Netherlands

2001
 Malick Sidibé. Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome - Italy

2000
 Malick Sidibé. Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva - Switzerland

2000
 Clubs of Bamako. Rice University Art Gallery, Houston - USA

1999
 Malick Sidibé : The Clubs of Bamako. Deitch Projects, New York - USA

1999
 Malick Sidibé. Australian Center for Photography, Sydney - Australia

1999
 Malick Sidibé. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago - USA

1998
 Malick Sidibé. Institut Français de Thessalonique, Thessaloniki - Greece

1998
 Malick Sidibé. Dany Keller Galerie, Munich - Germany

1997
 Malick Sidibé : Fotografie 1962-1976 « Clubs und Twist und Chats Sauvages ». Ifa-Galerie, Stuttgart - Germany

1995
 Malick Sidibé : Bamako 1962-1970. Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris - France

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

2006
 100% Africa. Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao - Spain

2006
 Vive l’Afrique. Galérie du Jour - Agnès b., Tokyo - Japan

2006
 About Africa, part one. Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp - Belgium

2005
 Arts of Africa. Grimaldi forum - Monaco

2005
 Vive l’Afrique. Galérie du Jour - Agnès b., Paris - France

2005
 Africa Urbis. Musée des Arts Derniers, Paris - France

2005
 African Art Now : Masterpieces from the Jean Pigozzi Collection. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston - USA

2004-2005
 Hamburg Kennedy Photographs. Scalo Project Space, New York - USA

2004-2005
 Common Ground : Discovering Community in 150 Years of Art. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. - USA

2004-2005
 Image and Identity : Portraits. The Sheldon Art Galleries, St Louis - USA

2004-2005
 Faces in the Crowd : Picturing Modern Life from Manet to Today. Whitechapel, London - England

2004-2005
 New Acquisition : Local and Global Contemporary Photography. Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston - USA

2004
 Fifty One celebrates four years. Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp - Belgium

2004
 Pretty World. Aeroplastics Contemporary, Brussels - Belgium

2004
 Je m’installe aux abattoirs : La collection d’art contemporain d’agnès b.. Les Abattoirs, Toulouse - France

2004
 Staged realities : exposing the soul in African photography 1870-2004. Michael Stevenson, Cape Town - South Africa

2004
 Joy of Life - Malick Sidibé and Ojeikere, Two Photographers from Africa. Hara Museum, Tokyo - Japan

2004
 Village Global : Les Années 60. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montreal - Canada Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas - USA

2003-2004
 Nous Remontons de la “Calle” Toutes les Photographies. Galerie du Jour agnès b., Paris - France

2003-2004
 Go Johnny Go ! The Electric Guitar - Art and Myth Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna - Austria

2003
 Summertime blues. Conrad Gallery, Düsseldorf - Germany

2003
 Correspondances Afriques. Iwalewa-Haus Afrikanzentrum der Universität Bayreuth, Bayreuth - Germany

2003
 Les ateliers des désirs Philip Kwame Apagya, Seydou Keïta & Malick Sidibé. Centre Culturel Français, Freiburg - Germany

2003
 Mali, photographies et textiles contemporains. mu.dac, Musée de design et d’arts appliqués contemporains, Lausanne - Switzerland

2002-2005
 African Art, African Voices : Long Steps Never Broke a Back.
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle - USA
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia - USA
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford - USA

2002-2003
 Portraits of Pride : Seydou Keïta / Malick Sidibé / Samuel Fosso
Norsk museum for fotografi - Preus fotomuseum, Horten - Norway
Bildens Hus Sundsvall - Sweden
Xposeptember Foto Festival 2002, Stockholm - Sweden

2001-2002
 The Short Century
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and Museum of Modern Art, New York - USA
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago - USA
House of World Cultures in the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin - Germany
Museum Villa Stuck, Munich - Germany

2001
 I Ka Nyi Tan. Seydou Keïta e Malick Sidibé fotografi a Bamako. Museo Hendrick Christian Andersen, Rome - Italy

2001
 Flash Afrique : Fotografie auf Westafrika. Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna - Austria

2000
 Africa : Past-Present. Fifty One Fine art Photography, Antwerp - Belgium

2000
 Porträt Afrika : Fotografische positionen eines jahrhunderts. Haus der Kulturen Der Welt, Berlin - Germany

2000
 Et l’Art se met au Monde. Nouveau Musée de Villeurbane, Villeurbane - France

1998-2000
 L’Afrique par elle-même (Africa by Africa)
Sala d’Ercole Palazzo d’Accursio, Bologne - Italy
Anacostia Museum, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. - USA
Kennedy Center, Washington D.C. - USA
Barbican Art Center, London - Great Britain
South African National Gallery, Cape Town - South Africa
3rd African Photography Encounters, Bamako - Mali
Pinacoteca, Sao Paulo - Brazil
Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris - France

1999
 Malick Sidibé / Seydou Keïta. Photo Espana 99, Madrid - Spain

1999
 Malick Sidibé / Seydou Keïta. 5th Istanbul Biennale, Istanbul - Turkey

1998
 Malick Sidibé / Seydou Keïta
Journée de la photographie, Institut Français, Athens, Greece
Biennale de la photographie Institut Français, Thessaloniki, Greece

1997
 Malick Sidibé / Seydou Keïta
Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco - USA

1997
 Retrats de l’Anima Fotografia Africana
Fundacio “la Caixa”, Madrid - Spain

1996
 In/ sight : African Photographers, 1940 to the present
Guggenheim Museum, New-York - USA

1996
 Vues d’Afrique : 12èmes Journées du Cinéma Africain et Créole
Montréal - Canada

1996
 Deuxièmes Rencontres de la Photographie Africaine, Bamako - Mali

1996
 Malick Sidibé : 18ème Festival des 3 Continents, Nantes - France

1995
 Sélection photographique des Premières Rencontres de la Photographie Africaine de Bamako, FNAC Étoile, Paris - France

1995
 Seydou Keïta - Malick Sidibé,The second Scottish International Festival of Photography Fruit Market Gallery, Edinburgh - Great Britain

1994
 Premières Rencontres de la Photographie Africaine, Bamako - Mali

Malick Sidibé is represented in a number of museums and private collections of which the most important are :
Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Birmingham Museum of Art
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
Philadelphia Museum of Art
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
International Center of Photography, New York
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Collection Agnès b., Paris
Collection Lambert (LAC), Geneva
Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, Paris
Collection du Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris

Biography by André Magnin

Malick Sidibé was born in 1935 into a Peul family in a small village of Mali. He graduated from school in I952. After being noticed for his talent as a draftsman, he was admitted to the School of Sudanese Craftsmen in Bamako from which he graduated in I955.

He decorated the "Photo Service" store of Gerard Guillat, also known as "Gégé la Pellicule", who offered him a job as his apprentice. That’s how he got started in photography in 1956. He opened the "Studio Malick" in I958 in the centre of Bamako in Bagadadji, on 30th Street, Corner I9, where he still prints his portraits today and repairs cameras. The wildness of the 1950’s, and the coming of independence, gave birth to a new generation of photographers who were totally involved in the cultural and social life that they recorded. Malick Sidibé, was a pivotal character in all this, highly appreciated by young people, he was present at all the soirees where the young, organized in clubs, learned the new dances coming from Europe and Cuba, and dressed elegantly in Western clothes. In I957 he was the only reporter in Bamako who covered all the events, festivities and surprise-parties. On Saturdays these parties lasted until dawn and continued on Sunday on the banks the river Niger. This on-the-spot coverage provided simple pictures, full of truth and complicity. From his photos an insouciance and spontaneity emerges : he captured the playful partying, full of laughter and life.

He quit this activity in 1978, but continued his studio photography and repairing cameras. When his work gained an international reputation, new horizons opened up for him. People flock to his studio, magazines commission photo-reports, and he is invited almost everywhere in the world for exhibitions and conferences. The Hasselblad Award was presented to Malick Sidibé 2003.

This exhibition is presented in partnership with André Magnin, art critic, curator, writer and artistic director for the Contemporary African Art Collection (CAAC, The Pigozzi Collection, Geneva, Switzerland). André Magnin works with Malick Sidibé since 1992 and curated his first monographic exhibition in 1995 at the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain in Paris, France. André Magnin is the author of Malick Sidibé, artist monograph published by Scalo Editions in 1998.