Photos from UCLA Hammer Museum "Amis des espagnoles
(Friends of the Spanish)," 1968, by Malick Sidibé.
By Kelsey McConnell
Daily Bruin Contributor
Fusing a commercial venture with a desire for self-expression,
the photographs in a new exhibit at the UCLA Hammer Museum show
Africans as they choose to see themselves.
On display now until May 5, “You Look Beautiful Like
That” exhibits the portrait photographs of artists Seydou
Keïta and Malick Sidibé. The show’s title is a
translation of a popular phrase in Bamako ““ the language
widely spoken in Mali ““ and reflects Keïta and
Sidibé’s desire to make their subjects appear
attractive.
Keïta, working in the West African nation of Mali from the
1940s until his recent death, was one of the first African
photographers. Sidibé, also West African, though born 14 years
after Keïta, reprised Keïta’s style to represent
the rebelliousness of the 1960s. Both photographers provided a
previously unavailable mode of control over the representation of
an African nation.
The exhibition was first organized at Harvard University’s
Fogg Art Museum by an assistant curator in the department of
photography, Michelle Lamunière.
 Seydou Keïta, in "Untitled,"
1956-1957, uses props to reflect the modernity and status of his
subjects. “Keïta learned photography through trial and
error,” Lamunière said. “Sidibé was
apprenticed with a European photographer. We look at these
photographs as art, but they took photos as a living.”
Even so, the show imbues the photos with a worth beyond their
commercial value.
“So much Western photography was based on ethnographic
studies,” said Steven Nelson, UCLA assistant
professor of African and African American Art History.
“It treated Africans like specimens. They look like mug
shots. But in these pictures, one is seeing an exchange between
photography and how people wanted to be represented.”
The exhibit pays attention to the changes in photographic
conventions that allowed Africans to move from exotic specimens to
autonomous entities. “You Look Beautiful Like That”
includes 14 black and white postcards from the early 20th century.
The postcards give a certain perspective to the exhibit which makes
obvious the evolution of Keïta and Sidibé’s work
from these earlier images.
 Seydou Keïta’s "Untitled," 1949-1951 is on display
at the Hammer Museum until May 5.
“Photography was brought to Africa in the 1840s and
Keïta and Sidibé expanded that tradition,” said
Lamunière. “As the use of the backdrop evolved, they
started using textiles which are very important in Africa. This was
an African innovation.”
Creating an authentic look was key to Keïta and
Sidibé’s subjects. Refusing to use a plain white
backdrop, Keïta photographed members of the burgeoning West
African middle class amongst vividly patterned African fabrics. His
subjects demonstrated their modernity and status within the
community through their choice of props.
In Sidibé’s 1977 portrait “Jeune homme pattes
d’éléphant socoche et montre,” a young man
stands before a white backdrop in typically 1970s garb. While
the rest of his body stands relaxed, the subject holds up his left
arm to call attention to the watch on his wrist. In an
untitled 1956 or 1957 portrait by Keïta, a man in a suit
jacket leans, unsmiling, over a large radio.
 “Jeune homme pattes d’éléphant socoche et
montre (Young man with bell bottoms, bag, and watch),” by
Malick Sidibé, 1977. “They had a chest of accessories
that people could put on and you could be whoever you wanted to
be,” Nelson said. “Formerly colonized places in Africa
were experiencing modern life. So in this studio setting, the
pictures became a representation of people fitting themselves into
popular culture.”
As societal roles changed throughout the 1960s, Sidibé
modified Keïta’s expressive style to capture the
essence of the time period. The people who sat for Sidibé
were known to take a more theatrical approach to the self-creation
of identity, making his photographs from that era more varied in
their action than Keïta’s.
The culture of the era captured in these photographs make the
exhibit a stop on UCLA’s Black Spots Tour, a program with the
Academic Supports program.
“The purpose of the trip is to expose people to the
cultural and historical spots to give a broader understanding of
the black experience in UCLA as a whole,” said Ariana Brooks,
graduate of UCLA and director of the Academic Supports Program.
“In terms of advertising and exposure, there aren’t
a lot of exhibits (with African themes), so (the exhibit) also acts
to expose people to realities,” Brooks added.
The exhibit comes to the Hammer with several related public
programs. Among them is a “gallery talk” with
Lamunière on Sunday, Feb. 24. Sidibé himself will be
speaking at the museum the following Wednesday, Feb. 27. Nelson
will join colleague Manthia Diawara, professor of Africana studies
at New York University, for a talk on Thursday, March 21.
ART: “You Look Beautiful Like That”
is being exhibited now until May 5 at the UCLA Hammer Museum
located on Wilshire Blvd. For more information on store hours and
admission prices, call (310) 443-7020 or visit www.hammer.ucla.edu.