Faces That Act: Yoruba Masks, Power, and the Invention of Modern Art
Western museums train viewers to approach art as something inert: silent, stable, and available for prolonged visual inspection. Yoruba masks were conceived in direct opposition to this logic, designed not to be observed passively but to intervene actively in social and spiritual life. Before discussing their forms or meanings, it is essential to understand that Yoruba masks are not objects first. Still, the significance of events unfolds only when movement, sound, costume, and collective recognition converge. A mask resting on a wall is culturally unfinished, stripped of the very conditions that give it force. As art historian Babatunde Lawal puts it, “In Yoruba thought, art exists fully only when it acts.” Àṣẹ: The Energy That Makes Art Work To understand why Yoruba masks function as events, one must first understand àṣẹ , the animating principle at the center of Yoruba metaphysics. Àṣẹ is not symbolic power but operational force, the capacity to cause change, to transform inten...
