‘Conversation: African Art as Philosophy’

African Art as Philosophy was a groundbreaking publication by philosopher Souleymane Bachir Diagne. In it, he critically engages with the ideas outlined by the Senegalese politician and cultural theorist Léopold Sedar Senghor who looks at African art as an emotional and spiritual force. This is where the artist Kendell Geers and the collector Sindika Dokolo found inspiration for their discussions about the art they selected for IncarNations: African Art as Philosophy. The exhibition is conceived as an immersive experience and a spiritual initiation. It offers the visitor a reading of African art through its spirituality rather than its aesthetic quality, origin, or ethnographic context, transcending stereotypical views of what is considered ‘African art’. 
A conversation between curator and art collector Sindika Dokolo, and philosophers Souleymane Bachir Diagne, and Nadia Yala Kisukidi in which they discuss the liberating power of such a philosophy.