Acknowledgments

Lamunière, Michelle

Save Cite Share

Free

Acknowledgments

Michelle Lamunière

Description: You Look Beautiful Like That: The Portrait Photographs of Seydou Keïta and...

You Look Beautiful Like That: The Portrait Photographs of Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé

Acknowledgments

Author

Michelle Lamunière

PublisherHarvard Art Museums

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00181.003

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-16861

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to James Cuno, my professor and primary inspiration when I was an undergraduate at Vassar College, for his support over the years and for the opportunity to develop an exhibition and catalogue around such incredible material. I am also beholden to Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé for taking the time to talk with me about their careers as photographers and for sharing their experiences of portrait making in Bamako as well as their wonderful photographs.

Harvard alumnus Jean Pigozzi has generously lent the photographs by Keïta and Sidibé in the exhibition from his Contemporary African Art Collection, based in Geneva. I thank André Magnin, curator of this collection, for his assistance during my research trip to Paris. I worked closely with Philippe Boutté on the logistical details of putting the exhibition and catalogue together and am indebted to him for his professionalism and good humor. I also gladly acknowledge Philippe Salaün for creating the modern prints of the photographers’ work.

For their assistance in the planning phases and during my visit to Bamako, I am eternally grateful to Ousmane Macina, Caleb Kissling, Mike Sarabia, Mahamadou Yaressi, and, especially, Baba Maiga, whose interest in the project and gift of friendship made my time in Bamako that much more extraordinary.

I am obliged to the following scholars for their careful reading of and crucial comments on early drafts of the catalogue essay: Lauri Firstenberg, a New York-based independent curator; Christraud M. Geary, curator of the Eliot Elisofon Archives at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution; Laura U. Marks, a writer and programmer of independent media and associate professor of film studies at Carleton University, Ottawa; Steven Nelson, assistant professor of African and African American Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles; and Kim Sichel, associate professor of art history at Boston University.

I would also like to express my appreciation to Christraud Geary and to Virginia-Lee Webb, associate research curator in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for their assistance and for generously lending historical images of Africa from their collections.

Lia Brozgal, a graduate student in Harvard’s Department of Romance Languages, transcribed and translated the artists’ interviews. I am grateful for her skill in conveying the photographers’ voices in her translations. My fellow interns at the Harvard University Art Museums, Catherine Blais, Tanja Maka, and Darius Spieth, also gave generously of their time to assist with other aspects of language translation.

I would like to thank Michael C. Vazquez, Trevor Corson, and Richard Swartz of Transition magazine for sharing my enthusiasm about these photographs and for publishing excerpts of my interview with Sidibé.

For their expert assistance in the mounting of the exhibition, I am particularly indebted to Danielle Hanrahan and her capable staff in Exhibitions; Craigen Bowen in the Straus Center for Conservation; and assistant registrar Amanda Prugh. A very special thanks to Becky Hunt, Marsha Pomerantz, and Evelyn Rosenthal of the Publications Department for their editorial skill and creativity in the production of this catalogue. I would also like to acknowledge my colleagues in the Agnes B. Mongan Center, especially Michael Dumas, who assisted with many details of this project.

For their friendship and encouragement through all phases of this project, as well as life, I’d like to recognize Jülide Aker, Karen Haas, Jaimey Hamilton, Stacey McCarroll, Christine Tan, Jenna Webster, and my family.

Finally, thanks from the bottom of my heart to the Fogg’s curator of photography, Deborah Martin Kao, my friend and mentor, for her guidance, support, and thoughtful comments throughout the production of the catalogue and exhibition, and for challenging me to take the project to higher and higher levels of quality and achievement.

This catalogue is dedicated to my mother, Janice, for her boundless love and support and for her never-ending belief in my abilities.

Previous chapter

Base text size -

Chapter images ()