A Conceptual Show Bringing Back the Originality of African Art

At a time when art is becoming more detached and exhibitionist, ‘Whispers of Power’, a live performance by Kenya-based musician, Liboi, staged at Nairobi’s Sarakasi Dome, counters this trend by creating an environment where the audience is an integral part of the performance. 

In his 1935 essay, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ Walter Benjamin, the philosopher and cultural critic, posits that from time immemorial, art was always created for its cult value rather than exhibition value. Simply, Benjamin says that when the cavemen carved stones and painted on the walls of their caves, they were not doing so for the other cavemen to stand before these painted walls and weave poetry about how deeply they were moved or how they could not peel their eyes off the walls. The curved stone or the cave painting was an offering to the gods—a medium of worship through which the Cave painter and his kinsmen would come together in communion with the deities to bless their hunts, protect their families, and safeguard their health and prosperity.

Art was never meant to just be observed, it was to be experienced. There was never supposed to be a distance between art and its consumer where the artist is a pedestalized god far removed from human trivialities that are his audience. However, through the incremental growth of technology, according to Benjamin, this chasm has only increased as the consumption of art became more exhibitionist and less cult. This means that the consumers of art became more of observers or spectators of art rather than active participants who were fully engaged with the art in a heightened state of consciousness...