If you’re in Los Angeles this month, you can catch Sanlé Sory’s exuberant Volta Photo at M+B. The artist’s 6 x 6 black and white studio photographs capture the youth culture in Burkina Faso in the 1960s-80s, following the African nation’s independence from France. There is a vibrancy that runs through these images, perhaps in part due to Sory’s eye that was trained not only for studio and portrait photography, but also event photography and illustration for record sleeves for the nation’s dynamic music scene. Many of the studio images are full of playful props, costumes and painted backdrops. “Anything,” Sory says, “to help people make the picture their own.”
