Bravo, Malik Sidibe!

I am so excited to see that my friend Malik Sidibe, the incredible photographer from Bamako, won a big lifetime achievement award at the upcoming Venice Biennale. I met Malik years ago through my friend, the filmmaker and photographer Andrew Dosumnu, who had befriended him on a trip home to see his family in Mali. I fell in love with Sidibe's amazing images the moment I saw them and bought a few immediately. Sidibe lived in Bamako and began his career as the party photographer for the local daily newspaper in the '60s. Of course he went to all the local parties and caught images of the cute kids all dressed up dancing and posing fiercely. The looks were INCREDIBLE! I guess he was kind of like the Cobrasnake of Bamako. One day, Andrew was invited to show one of his films at the Fespaco Film Festival in Bamako and we dreamt up this idea to get Malik to shoot a bunch of fashion shots for PAPER. Andrew set off to Africa carrying a plastic bag filled with cute Kamali, Chanel, Dolce, Versace and YSL swimsuits and the photos turned out incredibly. We ran the piece in our summer issue -- it was in 1998 I think.

From that time on, every time Malik comes to New York, Andrew and I have brunch with him. He is a lovely and jolly guy who is now finally getting his due, which makes me so happy. Here is a photo of Malik (isn't he cute?) and some of his images. He's amazing.