C’est pas ma faute, 2010
Gelatin silver print
31 × 22 in
March 17, 2025
Famed Malian photographer Malick Sidibé titled this work C’est pas ma faute, which translates to “It’s not my fault”. While he let it be known that he’s not to blame for the technical failure that created this multiple exposure, it’s clear that he embraced the resulting image.
This piece is from a body of work Sidibe created in 2010, revisiting his studio portraits of children, and exploiting the various mishaps, as a way to create unique and unexpected pictures. While these works often involved tearful young subjects, or children who were reduced to a blur due to their refusal to sit still, this double image was presumably a result of a film roll that slipped on the spool and did not advance properly, resulting in a multiple exposure.
It's immediately clear why years later, with the commissioned portrait long since complete, he would revisit this negative, as the poetry of the image makes one almost forget about the accidental nature of its creation. The slightly plaintive expression of the girl on the bottom finds a release in her ghostly double image, with her upturned head adding to the impression that she is dissolving in a beam of light from above. The knowledge that the image was created unintentionally offers an invitation for each viewer to freely interpret this hauntingly lovely picture.
