The Jack Shainman Gallery is following an exhibition of the work of Malick Sidibé from the museum of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, whose impressive collection offers a chronological summation of the whole of art history. Each work of the institution’s collection represents a movement, an era, a country or an artist. The bust of a pharaoh from Upper Egypt sits next to a Budha. The viewer is transported back through time with a Japanese print before entering a room filled with work by the great painters of the 20th century—Ernst, Picasso, Rothko, Pollock—followed by the Romantics, their landscapes and depth contrasting with the perspectiveless, medieval frescoes in another room.
For those who missed the temporary exhibition of Malick Sidibé’s photographs, an interesting selection of them are on view at Jack Shainman Gallery in Manhattan. The Malian studio photographer is so well known that his personal collection is sold out, but one can still find a few treasures representative of his sense of composition, which relies heavily on patterns, and the festive, daily life of Mali in the 1960s and ‘70s, when Sidibé was most active—so active that he hired other photographers to shoot under his name. The photographs are black and white, but the patterns have the vividness of color. Between the smiles and the raised bottles of beer, joy reigns in these photographs.
EXPOSITION
Malick Sidibé
March 28 – April 26, 2013
Jack Shainman Gallery
524 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
USA
