Seydou Keïta, Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris, France

from 05/05/2023 to 15/07/2023

Galerie Nathalie Obadia presents its fourth exhibition of Seydou Keïta (c.1921 - 2001), considered one of the most influential photographers in West Africa. This exhibition brings together a comprehensive range of work by this self-taught artist, whose rise to fame began in the heart of a small studio in Bamako - then the former capital of French Sudan. The inventiveness of the stagings, their modernity, the new valorization of the photographed subjects made him a celebrity in his country and those around: thousands of Malians came to be portrayed by Seydou Keïta between 1948 and 1962. These photographs, with their irrefutable beauty, are an important testimony to Malian society in the last phase of the colonial period and at the turn of independence. Once anthropological objects, the photographed subjects regain their identity, taking their rightful place at the heart of each work. The latter become archival documents, exceptional documentary sources that marked a turning point in West African photography.

Link to the exhibition website