La complicité

Artist Sanlé Sory (Burkinabe, born 1943)

Date1971 (negative); 2018 (print)

MediumGelatin silver print Edition 1/15 + 5 AP

DimensionsImage: 14 × 14 inches (35.6 × 35.6 cm);
Sheet (approx.): 20 × 16 inches (50.8 × 40.6 cm)

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineAcquired through the Stephanie L. WIles Endowment

Terms

Photographs
Gelatin silver print
Burkinabe

Object number2018.081.002

Label CopySanlé Sory opened his portrait studio in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso (then Upper Volta), in 1960, soon after the country gained independence from France. Named Volta Photo, the studio became a community hub, with music and visitors at all hours—a place where the vibrant, youthful, optimistic atmosphere of the early postcolonial era played out before Sory’s camera. West African music ensembles, partygoers, and everyday inhabitants of the growing cosmopolitan city and its environs fashioned themselves using props and chose from an impressive array of hand-painted backdrops. Some posed with objects of modernity and leisure, like telephones, motorcycles, and painted airplanes. In this photograph, a young couple keep the focus on themselves and their relationship, holding and gazing at one another in what seems the very image of young love. —Isabelle McDonald ’23

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