Je veux être seule

Malick Sidibé

1979 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

During the decades before and after Mali’s independence from France in 1960, Malick Sidibé operated a highly regarded commercial photography studio in the capital city of Bamako, making thousands of portraits for a burgeoning middle class. The central print represents a case of retrospective omission: the woman who commissioned this portrait returned to the studio after her husband left her and asked that he remove his image from the photograph, a request with which Sidibé complied.

Artist

Malick Sidibé

Date

1979

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of Jack Shainman Gallery, 2003