You Look Beautiful Like That: The Portrait Photographs of Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibe

The catalogue of a recent Harvard University exhibition, You Look Beautiful Like That: The Portrait Photographs of Seydou Keita and Malick Sidib‚ chronicles the two portrait photographers’ work in Mali. Ke‹ta and Sidib‚ took countless studio portraits of Malinese people before and after the country became independent from France in 1960. Michelle LamuniŠre, a curatorial research assistant at Harvard’s Fogg Museum, includes an essay on the history of West African portrait photography (with images dating back to the turn of the century) and portions of recent interviews with the two artists. The 79 images ranging from people in strictly traditional dress to friends in hip Westernized get-ups to men posed in a boxing scene are striking for their subjects’ arresting gazes and poses as well as for their superior production value.