Malick Sidibé - The Portrait of Mali

Faces, figures and anthropized landscapes render the portrait of an entire country, Malick Sidibé's Mali, highlighting the ethical value of the human identity, from the individual to his relationship with the social group. The studio portraits, characterised by the meticulousness of the poses and the shots that render the lively atmosphere of the parties in Bamako's clubs, all strictly in black and white, stand alongside the colour photographs on life in the village of Soloba, in the constant dialogue between the solid construction of a portrait and the staging of a kind of "plural family album".
Il ritratto del Mali is the second volume in the Sinetica Landscape series edited by Sabrina Zannier. A project on international contemporary photography, focusing on the theme of travel, which every year presents the gaze of a great photographer on his or her own country, from Africa to Europe, from Asia to the Middle East.